KARACHI, Aug 22: After remaining three months and four days in the custody of police and intelligence agencies, high-profile gangster Abdul Rehman alias Rehman Dakait escaped from police custody early Tuesday morning, making it his second successful attempt.

He was wanted in more than 150 cases. Earlier in 1997, Rehman had escaped while being taken to court.

However, some top police officials were of the opinion that Rehman’s escape was facilitated by certain quarters.

Three police officials of the Kalri police station have been detained and a raid was carried out at the house of the SHO of Kalri police station, Bahauddin Babar, who was detained, a senior police official told Dawn on the condition of anonymity.

A source said that two days back Rehman was shifted from the lockup of Kalri police station to a safe house in Nazimabad.

Sometime on Monday night Rehman Dakait made his escape when police guards were overpowered by Rehman’s companions who had come for his liberation, the source added.

Throughout the period of detention, police did not officially acknowledge Rehman’s arrest. Following his arrest on June 18 in Quetta, his custody was taken by the intelligence agencies.

Almost a month back he was handed back to the Lyari Task Force.

However, after the Rasool Bukhsh Brohi staged encounter case, almost all members of the Lyari Task Force were arrested while SP Aslam Khan was admitted to a private hospital reportedly for cardiac treatment.

Following his capture, Rehman had asked his captors to kill him, otherwise they would regret their decision, “I have escaped in the past and will succeed again,” Rehman had told his captors.

Rehman Dakait was captured on June 18 in a posh neighborhood of Quetta by the Lyari Task Force.

On June 23, Ms Zubeda, a maternal aunt of Abdul Rehman, submitted before the Sindh High Court that Rehman was arrested in Quetta on June 18 along with his brother-in-law Wajid, daughter Atiqa, 11, and son Atique, 8, and he was being illegally detained by the law enforcement agencies.

The petitioner’s counsel Omer Sial submitted that his client (Rehman) was shifted to an undisclosed location in Islamabad by LEA without producing him before any court of law and obtaining his remand.

Subsequently, the Sindh High Court issued notices to the secretary for interior, the home minister of Sindh and the IG of Sindh for June 29.