RAWALPINDI, Oct 1: An expatriate Pakistani was robbed of Saudi Riyals 25,000 (Rs628,750) by five robbers, who were wearing police caps and carrying wireless sets, near the office of Superintendent of Police (SP) traffic Rawalpindi Range, located off Peshawar Road, the victim and police said on Monday.Muhammad Sharif, an expatriate Pakistani, settled in Saudi Arabia was visiting Rawalpindi for his son’s marriage and while going home with his daughter and son-in-law, after changing 25,000 Riyals on Saturday afternoon, when he was accosted by five unidentified persons.

Sarfraz Khan, a chartered accountant and son-in-law of Muhammad Sharif, who was on the driving seat told Dawn that he stopped his car on seeing the green registration plate and men inside wearing police caps and carrying wireless sets.

Sarfraz said: “As I asked the man on the driving seat to show me his identification card, he produced a card of ‘Special Branch’ to me and all of them were talking like policemen do in their investigation. My belief was further strengthened when I heard conversation on their wireless sets, they had been carrying.”

He further said the imposters told him that there had been a report that somebody from his car possessed an illegal weapon; therefore, they wanted to conduct a physical search.

Sarfraz Khan said the bogus policemen ordered him to call his father-in-law from his car as they started their search. During the search, they fetched Rs628,750 from my father-in-law and later sped away, after pushing him away on the road.

He said: “Shortly after the culprits escaped from the scene, I rushed to the office of SP and sought police help. The policemen present there, taunted me and argued that why did I stop my car?”

“Had I ignored them and sped away instead of stopping my car, they would have fired at me. I thought it better to stop, then to put the lives of my wife and others at risk,” Sarfraz said and added that later I went to the Race Course police to get the FIR registered but they too blamed me and advised not to mention police caps and wireless sets in the FIR.

He further said that he suffered another setback on Monday, after along with his father-in-law he went to SP Potohor to seek his help in tracking down the culprits, as he was told that the Close Circuit Television (CCTV) cameras were installed on Peshawar road. But there he was informed that they had not been functioning, therefore it would not be possible for the police to get the CCTV images of the imposters.