KARACHI: Police on Tuesday evening managed to arrest an armed man who had taken at least three workers hostage for more than four hours apparently to take revenge on the owners of the industrial unit who fired him last week.

An official said that the man, Saleem Shahzad, entered a crushing unit in Federal B Industrial Area with a pistol and held the manager, his assistant and another worker hostage at gunpoint.

The stand-off continued for more than four hours before it came to an end through the police intervention.

“The suspect after entering the manager’s room pulled out a pistol and asked him to record his video statement through his mobile phone and send the video to other colleagues and owners of the factory,” said Malir SSP Munir Sheikh.

“Within next half hour his video statement emerged on different social media platforms and police were also approached by the factory management.”

He said in the video statement, the man narrated his ordeal that he was fired from his job at a time when he was getting treatment due to a road accident and his younger sister was set to get married. Besides, he claimed that the owners did not even pay his two-month dues, said the SSP.

The situation, he said, forced Saleem to take desperate measures in which he also fired multiple shots just to keep other people at the factory away from the manager’s room.

Published in Dawn, August 8th, 2018