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Published 26 Feb, 2012 09:42pm

Cops rob senior citizen at gunpoint

PESHAWAR, Feb 26: Two officials of Khan Razik police station deprived a senior citizen of Rs50,000 and a costly cellular phone set.

Senior Superintendent of Police Tahir Ayub, when contacted, confirmed the robbery by officials of his force, saying both of them were suspended and locked up in the quarter guard. “I have ordered inquiry against them. If found guilty, they will be terminated from the service,” he said.

Haji Liaqat Shah Afridi, 55, told Dawn that he was travelling in a passenger bus to reach his residence in Hayatabad. When the bus reached Qila Balahisar stop, a young man in black clothes boarded the bus and came towards him, he said. “That person pointed a pistol at me and disembarked me from the bus by force,” Mr Afridi said.

He said that two policemen of rider squad were waiting for him at the stop. “One of the policemen pointed his official AK-47 rifle at my back and said repeatedly that they were ordered to shoot me,” he said.

Mr Afridi, a businessman of gemstones, said that he told the policemen that he was neither a criminal nor wanted in any case but one of them shouted at him and threatened to shoot him down if he continued to argue.

He alleged that both the policemen started searching his pockets and took away Rs50,000 and a cellular phone set worth Rs27,000 from him. After depriving him of valuables, he said, the policemen told him that he should be thankful to them for not killing him because they could get Rs1 million as reward for his killing.

Mr Afridi said that after the incident, he went to Khan Razik police station and informed SHO Sattar Khattak about it. “The SHO and I came to the same place in a police van where both the policemen were standing while their third colleague, who was inplain clothes, was missing. The workers of a nearby hotel also supported my claim and told the SHO that they saw me with thepolicemen,” he claimed.

Mr Afridi said that despite identifying the officials and hearing statements of the witnesses, police were yet to register FIR against their colleagues.

The SHO, when contacted, said that the policemen, who robbed the senior citizen were identified as Mohammad Shah and Kalimullah.

Sources said that the immediate boss of Mohammad Shah and Kalimullah had already brought into the notice of his high-ups that both of them were involved in various crimes but no action was taken against them.

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