LAHORE: Three suspects spotted in a viral video looting a family and others in a restaurant in Lytton Road area some days back were allegedly killed in an encounter with a Crime Control Department (CCD) team here on Tuesday.

The suspects were arrested from Sahiwal and Narowal where they had gone underground to avoid police raids.

As per the reports, the three suspects entered a restaurant where a family, including children and women, was sitting.

They held up the employees and snatched from them their belongings including mobile phones. During the looting spree, a young girl fainted and the video clip of the incident went viral on social media.

A police official said the case was assigned to the CCD Lahore and separate teams of the police managed to trace and arrest all the three suspects who were identified as Naeem, Ashraf and Kabir.

Of them, Naeem alias Andheri had remained in jail. After being released, he formed a gang of criminals.

The police officer claimed that the CCD team was taking the suspects to the Karol Ghati for the purpose of recovery. He claimed that some unknown armed men attacked the police and opened fire to free the arrested criminals.

During the encounter, three suspects were killed ‘by the firing of their own accomplices’, he claimed adding that the police shifted bodies to the city morgue for autopsy.

Published in Dawn, February 25th, 2026