KARACHI: The city police appear to have become more than ever aggressive in chasing suspects and engaging them in “encounters” that led to the arrest of eight suspects, six of them wounded, in different parts of the city on Tuesday.

In the Pirabad area of West district, a police party engaged suspected criminals in an encounter during which four suspects were wounded and arrested. The police personnel intercepted them near Paracha graveyard and after a brief exchange of fire, they arrested all the four suspects, according to the police.

The suspects were later identified as Arshad Gul, Shaukat Gul, Ariyan Gul and Abdullah Khan. The police claimed to have seized two pistols, cash and valuables from them.

In the limits of the New Karachi Industrial Area police station, one suspected criminal was wounded and arrested following, what police claimed, an “encounter”.

The suspect was hit in the arm, the police said, and identified him as Waqar Hanif. He had a history of criminal activities, they claimed.

A suspected drug peddler was wounded and arrested in yet another encounter in the same area.

The suspect was identified as Mohammad Waqar alias Chooha.

In Malir, a policeman was wounded in an exchange of gunfire with some armed men claimed by police to be bandits.

In Korangi, two suspects were wounded and arrested after another encounter on a link road. Identifying them as Irfan Aziz and Arif Hakeem, the police claimed to have seized two pistols, some snatched mobile phones and a motorbike from them. The mobile phones and motorbike were snatched last week in the Landhi area, they said.

A police constable, Mohammad Sajjad, posted at the Saudabad police station, was wounded when he, along with one of his colleagues, tried to stop two armed suspects riding a motorbike. The policemen tried to intercept the fleeing suspect, who had snatched a mobile phone from a citizen, they said.

Published in Dawn, May 11th, 2022