ISLAMABAD: Police have identified the third man who was killed in an armed robbery on Monday that left three people, including an arms dealer and one of the alleged robbers, dead.

An officer close to the investigation told Dawn the unidentified man found dead alongside the arms dealer in the weapons dealership was Bilal Khan, a close acquaintance of arms dealer Pervaiz Khan, who Bilal used to refer to as his uncle. The police have also traced his family.

The alleged robber who was killed in crossfire with security guards during a second attempted robbery by the same group has also been identified, another police official said. He said the suspect was from the Bangash clan, and a team has been sent to his native town to collect his details and records of criminal activity, if any.

The second alleged robber, who was injured in the crossfire, had been bailed out of Central Jail Adiala a few weeks ago, where he was being held in connection with a May 2018 murder in Kural.

The man was shot in the mouth can therefore cannot speak or undergo interrogation.

The official said that on Monday three people, allegedly including the aforementioned injured suspect, stole a Suzuki Mehran from Shahzad Town. Typically, vehicle thieves immediately dispose of stolen vehicles and do not use them themselves.

However, the official said, the suspects used the same vehicle the next day to rob an arms dealership of a large quantity of weapons.

The owner of the vehicle identified the injured suspect as one of the people who snatched the car alongside two unidentified accomplices.

Officials close to the investigation have suggested that the two men who allegedly robbed the arms dealer and then killed him and his acquaintance may have been planning an incident in the capital.

The official said this was a unique robbery in the capital’s history, as the robbers stole modern, sophisticated weapons instead of cash or valuables.

He said: “The circumstances suggested that they needed the weapons for something big in the capital, which might be sabotage activity, targeted killing or a bank heist.”

He added that the stolen weapons were made abroad and included six rifles, eight pistols and a few submachine guns as well as a thousand rounds of various kinds of ammunition.

The investigation has marked three other people as suspects who may have been the robbers’ accomplices, the official said. They include the man who bailed the injured suspect out of Adiala.

The investigation has so far concluded that the suspects had at least two more accomplices and efforts are ongoing to trace and arrest them, the officer said.

Published in Dawn, April 4th, 2019