LAHORE: Unidentified criminals looted cash and gold ornaments worth nearly Rs50 million after breaking into a closed

jewellery shop and snatched Rs1.9m from a British national woman, in separate incidents in the city.

Umair Ahmad told Sundar police that he ran a jewellery shop in Bahria Town, that was closed because of Eid holidays.

He said some unidentified thieves broke into the shop by cutting the iron grill of a window using a gas cutter and took away 3,100 gram gold jewellery worth over Rs47.6m and Rs3.2m cash.

He said he came to know about the theft when he arrived at the shop and found the locks of the safe broken.

UK national woman deprived of Rs1.9m by robbers

A police official said the forensic experts and the police jointly visited the crime scene following a call made by the shop owner on 15 helpline.

During investigation, the experts took fingerprints and sent them for forensic analysis, he said.

He said police were also trying to trace the suspects through the footage of a CCTV camera installed near the shop.

About the other incident that took place in Sanda area, the police official said, a Pakistan-origin British national woman had came to Pakistan from UK to celebrate Eid with her other family members.

On Monday morning, she left her house in a car, along with her relatives, to reach the airport to get a flight to England, when two unidentified armed motorcyclists intercepted them in the street.

They held up the woman and her relatives at gunpoint, snatched British currency, gold jewellery, other valuables, her passport and keys of the car and fled away.He said the police had obtained the CCTV footage of the fleeing criminals that showed the bike used in the crime had no registration plate.

The police have lodged a case on the complaint of the woman’s relative Rizwan Shah and started further investigation into the incident.

Published in Dawn, April 25th, 2023