KARACHI: Three robbers posing themselves as ‘policemen’ snatched over Rs11 million from two traders from Punjab on main Shahrah-i-Pakistan, police said on Wednesday.

They said that the traders had purchased new banknote packets in Mithadar on Tuesday evening to make note garlands used on occasions of wedding and other ceremonies.

They were heading to Sohrab Goth to take a bus when the robbers travelling in a car intercepted them near Samanabad and snatched Rs11,500,000 cash’ from them.

One of the traders, Muhammad Ramazan, lodged an FIR at the Samanabad police station stating that he was a resident of Kasur and had come here along with his partner Mushtaq Subhani to buy new banknotes. They bought new banknote packets of Rs10 denomination of Rs7.8 million worth and packed the same in 13 bags while they had another Rs3.7 million in their travelling bag.

They hired a Suzuki pick-up and were on their way to Sohrab Goth bus terminus to go to Punjab when three men travelling in a car, aged between 30 and 35 years and wearing shalwar kameez, intercepted them on Shahrah-i-Pakistan at around 8.10pm on Tuesday. The robbers pulled over and two of them got out of the car and asked the van driver to come out of the van.

Posing themselves as ‘policemen’, the robbers claimed that there was an FIR lodged against them. They pulled out guns and forcibly got into the van and pushed him away and the driver out of the vehicle.

Their third accomplice was driving their car while the gunmen hijacked the van and took his partner Mushtaq as a hostage. The complainant said he made a phone call on Madadgar-15 and a police team came awhile later.

The robbers dropped his partner at some distance and took away the van along with the snatched cash, the robbery victims claimed.

Published in Dawn, March 24th, 2022