KARACHI Two suspected bandits, who shot dead a 26-year-old man during a bungled robbery, were beaten to death by a mob in Baldia Town on Tuesday, police and witnesses said.

Saeedabad police said that three robbers reached the Makkah Hotel at Memon Colony in Sector 4-D at around 0100 a.m. and held a group of friends hostage at gunpoint.They said the dacoits became jittery when one of the hostages struggled with them and overpowered one of them.

The police said that one of the robbers opened fire and a bullet hit Abdul Karim, 26, who became fatally wounded. They said the victim was a worker of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and was employed at a factory.

The witnesses said that the victim continued to wrestle with the dacoit despite having been shot at. The victim, who had received a fatal bullet wound in the chest, died on his way to the Civil Hospital.

They said that the mob caught two of the bandits while their third accomplice fled the scene under the cover of fire.

The witnesses said that enraged people gave a hiding to the suspected dacoits who fell unconscious before the police reached the spot.

The police said that one of the suspected dacoits was killed on the spot and the other was fatally injured because the mob had beaten him up severely.

They said that the police shifted the dead and wounded bandits to the Civil Hospital where the injured man died afterwards.

Sources at the hospital's medico-legal section told Dawn that both the suspected dacoits had been severely beaten up and their bodies bore multiple fractures.

The bodies were kept at the Edhi morgue as the suspected dacoits could not be immediately identified.

Later, they were identified as Altaf alias Shahjahan, and Mohammed, residents of Sector 11½ in Orangi Town. They originally hailed from Azad Kashmir, the police said.

They said that a case (FIR 468/2008) was registered against the absconding robber under Sections 392, 397, 302 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code on the complaint of the victim's brother, Abdur Rahim.