LAHORE, April 3: Apprehensions about the escape of hardened criminals from captivity have made police to eliminate outlaws like Aslam Basa, it is learnt.

Basa along with his accomplices Noman alias Kashi and Saleem alias Gaggah was killed after a shootout with a Kot Lakhpat CIA team on Jiya Bagga Road in Raiwind early Monday after he `managed his escape’ from Kahna CIA custody with the help of seven people, a police handout issued the same evening had claimed.

A senior police officer informed Dawn that the escape of notorious figure Mubashir Khan alias Bashri from the Model Town courts on Feb 8 this year had made police to take the extreme step.

He said a high-level meeting of the capital city police was held after the escape of Bashri which suggested to the Punjab IGP and chief minister that the hardened criminals who had become dangerous for citizens and tried to manage escape from the police custody must be taken to task.

“The police then finally got the nod of the provincial government,” he claimed.

The frequent escape of criminals from the police custody time and again has maligned the police department as a whole, a police officer said, adding the police highups and the government had taken a serious note of that.

When CIA SP Masood Aziz was asked about the modus operandi of Basa and his accomplices’ escape and that how did police learn about their escape route, he repeated official version released through a handout on Monday