KARACHI: Police on Tuesday claimed to have arrested a suspected robber for allegedly looting three Turkish academics in Saddar on Sunday while posing as a policeman.

On Oct 11, a three-member Turkish delegation of Gaziantep University was visiting Karachi to attend the International Summit of Islamic World University Chancellors at the Al-Ghazali Campus of Jamia-tur-Rasheed. After the day’s session, the delegation returned to a hotel near Saddar under police security.

Later, the delegates proceeded to Saddar for shopping. When they reached near the Passport Office, some people, dressed in police uniforms, stopped the foreigners on the pretext of checking their passports and visas, the police said, adding that the suspects searched the delegates and forcibly took $2,000 from their pockets and fled in a private vehicle.

South DIG Syed Asad Raza said the police traced the vehicle, identified the suspects involved in the robbery and recovered the looted amount.

He said the arrested suspect, identified as Muslim Shan, had allegedly used a car bearing a fake number plate and wore fake police uniforms.

The officer said the same suspect, along with his accomplices, had also intercepted members of the Tableeghi Jamaat from Bangladesh in Garden three days earlier. They allegedly took the religious visitors to a location in Garden, where they snatched Tk500,000 (Bangladeshi currency) and other valuables from them.

The visitors had travelled from Bangladesh to attend the gathering at a Garden mosque when they were robbed, he added.

Published in Dawn, October 14th, 2026