KARACHI, July 22: The police shot dead four suspected bandits, who appeared to be Afghan nationals, on Monday afternoon in Al-Noor Society, Federal B-Area.

A Suzuki pick-up (KC-4232) of a distribution company was parked near the Gulberg roundabout and its salesman, Mohammed Shahid, was taking order from a shopkeeper, when four alleged bandits held the security guard of the distribution company’s van, Dost Mohammed, and its driver, Akhtar, at gunpoint and sped away towards Al-Noor, witnesses said.

As the suspected bandits drove away in the van, Shahid informed the police of the incident. The police intercepted the suspected bandits near the Al-Noor Mor where they shot dead all of them, witnesses said.

The bodies were sent to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for post-mortem where doctors said that all the four suspected bandits suffered bullet wounds to their upper torsos.

Sources claimed that the police opened fire with the intention of killing the suspects. The “trained policemen” could have fired on their legs and arrested them, they added.

However, the DSP Gulberg, Latif Siddiqui, said that the four alleged bandits hijacked a Suzuki van and made its occupants hostage at gunpoint. A passerby in Samanabad Bazaar noticed foul play in the Suzuki van and informed two policemen who were passing the place on a motorcycle.

The police constables, Habibullah and Ajab Khan, chased the van and intercepted it near the Al-Noor Mor forcing the alleged bandits to stop the vehicle, where the suspected bandits opened fire at the police. The two policemen returned the fire killing two bandits sitting in the front seats. Their two accomplices, who were sitting in the rear of the Suzuki pick-up, alighted from the vehicle and opened fire at the police, and they were also shot dead.

The van driver, Akhtar, and the security guard, Dost Mohammed, said at Samanabad police station that they lied down in the vehicle when firing began and they did not know what happened thereafter.

After post-mortem, the bodies of all the four suspects have been kept in the Edhi’s morgue. The identity of the four dead alleged bandits, who were in their twenties and clad in Shalwar-Kameez, could not be established immediately.

The police said that all the four alleged bandits looked like Afghans by their appearance.

The police claimed to have recovered three TT pistols, one dagger, and Rs2,000 from their possession.