MUZAFFARGARH: Villagers of the Fazil Karlu Union Council say they are disappointed at the release of the thieves within hours of their arrest, which they had caught red-handed after sleepless nights for several days.

They said a gang of thieves had been active in the locality for several weeks. They would come in a car and steal goats, motorcycles and gold ornaments from houses. They stole five-tola gold from the house of Khadim Tanwari and a motorcycle, jewellery and cash from the house of Ghulam Akbar Thaheem at Ghulam Aliwala.

They struck six houses in three days, which alerted the residents who started patrolling the area themselves.

Late on Thursday, they caught the gang at the house of Gul Mohammad Karlo when they were stealing goats. Two suspects took cover in a waterlogged area while the car driver was caught who was identified as Mazhar Shah.

On being alerted, the Saddar police arrested Mazhar and joined the villagers in their search for the two others. Hundreds of people gathered at the pond area and after three hours they caught them and shifted to the outhouse of union council former chairman Zia Alam where police recorded video statements of the captured suspects.

When the police shifted the two suspects to the police station, a court bailiff with lawyers arrived there with the release orders of the suspects. A police official claimed the car owner was also a lawyer and later car driver Mazhar Shah was also released.

Akbar Thaheem, whose house was struck, said he had a video statement of robbers who confessed to the crime before the public and police and now the police and lawyers were pressurising him to withdraw the case.

SHO Danish Ali said he would arrest the accused. He also said he had received an application from lawyers that a man was missing who was detained by villagers illegally.

The villagers demanded the arrest of accused.

Published in Dawn, November 5th, 2021