Tag: Lahore crime

  • Tech-savvy robbers loot Lahore home after jamming signals

    Tech-savvy robbers loot Lahore home after jamming signals

    A gang of technologically advanced robbers looted gold and cash worth over Rs15 million from a house in Defence Housing Authority (DHA) Lahore after they successfully jammed Bluetooth and wireless signals for cell phones, GPS and Wi-Fi by using special blocking devices.

    The gang of five escaped via the motorway and then took an exit from a Faisalabad interchange while special teams were waiting to catch them at the exit points in Islamabad and Sargodha.

    The police from various cities of Punjab, however, failed to trace and arrest the criminals despite multiple efforts.

    The incident

    Reports suggest that five masked men brought a special device to disrupt the operations of all mobile phone services in the vicinity of around 100 meters, which left the family without any option of contacting the police or any other for help.

    The house is located in DHA Phase 4, and it is owned by a retired Superintendent of Police (SP), Rana Azeem, who rented it out to a tenet family of Mubashar Ahmed.

    Ahmed told the police that five armed men with masks on their faces forcefully entered his residence on Tuesday midnight.

    The dacoits held the family hostage in a room and collected 35 tola gold, including bangles and locket sets worth over Rs 8.75 million, 12 branded watches valued over Rs 1.3 million, a cash of Rs3.5 million, along with other valuables. In total, they took away Rs15.5 million worth of valuables.

    Three of them were carrying rifles, and two others were with pistols.

    Ahmed claimed that one of the robbers seemed to be between 65-70 years and one 50 years of age.

    The initial investigation revealed that this was the fourth house robbery by the same gang during 20 days in Defence Block A and Block C.

    They used a Honda Civic car in all the instances with fake registration number plates.

    After robbing the house on Tuesday, however, the robbers fled via motorway.

    Statement of the police

    Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Imran Kishwar of Organised Crime Unit (OCU) Lahore stated that the robbers had reached near Sherakot by the time the family alerted them, after which an encounter took place with the SHO concerned and his team, but the “robbers opened fire, hit the police barriers and managed to reach the motorway.”

    The police had installed pickets at the exit points of Islamabad, Sargodha and some other districts, but the tech-savvy robbers took a surprise exit from Faisalabad and disappeared.

    “We are on a hot pursuit of the hardened criminals and will round them up soon,” DIG Kishwar asserted.

    However, the DIG stated that the Punjab police had contacted the Dera Ismail Khan police as reports suggested that the suspects might go underground there.

  • Video: Two women allegedly kill house help, hide body in a cardboard box

    Video: Two women allegedly kill house help, hide body in a cardboard box

    A body of a female house help was discovered in a cardboard box by police in Kahna on Friday, Ary News has reported. In the CCTV footage found by the police, two women — Bushra and her daughter Irum — can be seen dragging a cardboard box, which allegedly contained the victim’s body.

    As per the police, the victim named Yasmeen worked at the house of Bushra. According to the police, the victim was first strangled and then stabbed.

    The family of the victim has alleged that Yasmeen was killed by the mother and daughter.

    Police have sent the body for a postmortem to determine the cause of death, while Bushra and her daughter have escaped. The police are conducting raids to arrest the mother and daughter duo.

  • ‘You won’t be able to escape, I will kill you’ says Mayra’s alleged killer

    ‘You won’t be able to escape, I will kill you’ says Mayra’s alleged killer

    A 24-year-old girl, Mayra Zulfiqar, was found dead in Lahore on Monday. She had recently been threatened by two men who both wanted to marry her.

    Prior to her brutal murder, she had asked police for protection after accusing a man of abducting her at gunpoint.

    In Pakistan, the chief investigating officer in the murder inquiry told the BBC that police teams were targeting addresses in Islamabad and Lahore. So far no arrest had been made.

    In a police report filed before her murder, Ms Zulfiqar named and accused a man of abducting her at gunpoint and attempting to sexually assault her.

    She said she managed to run away by alerting people around but the man threatened her, saying “You won’t be able to escape, I will kill you.”

    Mayra’s uncle Mohammad Nazeer found her body after receiving a phone call from her father, who lives in London, to say she had been killed.

    The initial postmortem report said that Mayra had received two bullets, one to her neck and another to her arm.

    Mayra Zulfiqar’s funeral took place in Lahore, while a special memorial service has been held at a mosque in Hounslow, west London. Her brother Faizan Muhammad said his father had left for Pakistan

    The deceased woman had arrived from the UK, where her family is settled, some two months back and shared the upper portion of the rented house with a friend. Police have taken her housemate into custody as part of the probe.

    Late on Monday, Defence-B police registered a First Information Report (FIR) against two purported friends of Mayra on murder charges on the complaint of the deceased woman’s uncle.

    In a statement, the Foreign, Commonwealth & Development Office said, “our thoughts are with the family at this difficult time. We are urgently seeking more information from the local authorities.”

  • ‘Over 20 mobile phones, Rs90,000 in cash’: Johar Town cafe robbed in ‘two minutes’

    ‘Over 20 mobile phones, Rs90,000 in cash’: Johar Town cafe robbed in ‘two minutes’

    Police have registered a case against two unidentified suspects for robbing a restaurant in Lahore’s Johar Town area on the night of November 26 and getting away with a loot of almost Rs1 million.

    Chai Khas, an eatery located on Main Boulevard, was jam-packed at 10:30 pm (despite coronavirus SOPs) when two alleged robbers entered the premises. According to eyewitnesses, the suspects armed with handguns took the “entire floor hostage and started taking away people’s mobile phones, jewellry, and wallets”.

    FIR of the incident

    The FIR of the robbery registered at the SattoKatlan police station claims that at least 21 mobile phones, worth almost Rs1 million, and Rs90,000 in cash was looted in the alleged robbery. The FIR, however, doesn’t mention the details or the worth of the jewellry. The suspects managed to finish their job in two minutes before getting away on a 70cc motorbike numbered 7102, as per the FIR.

    The incident took place at 10:30 pm on Thursday while the FIR was registered around 5 am on Friday, as the owner was allegedly reluctant to approach the police at first. However, after the insistence of the robbed customers, the owner decided to visit the police station in the wee hours of the morning, accompanied by one of the customers, who also shared the account of the robbery on a Facebook group.

    According to the FIR, the two suspects in their early 30s entered the restaurant on Thursday night. They sat in the cafe for a while before they took out their weapons and started robbing people at gunpoint.

    Subsequently, the police booked the suspects under Section 392 of the Pakistan Penal Code that pertains to robbery. “Whoever commits robbery shall be punished with rigorous imprisonment for a term which [shall not be less than three years nor more than] ten years, and shall also be liable to fine; and, if the robbery be committed on the Highway […..] the imprisonment may be extended to fourteen years,” the section reads.

    The police ASI, Furqan Anjum, remained unavailable for comments when The Current called him, seeking updates on the probe.

    RELUCTANCE OF CAFE OWNER:

    The people who were robbed at the restaurant have accused the cafe management of dilly-dallying in the registration of the FIR and the release of the CCTV footage of the incident. An eyewitness claimed that the owner didn’t want to go to the police because it could “damage the reputation of his cafe”. “The owner remained insensitive to the episode and remained reluctant to file an FIR,” the customer complained.

    People, who were robbed at the restaurant, have asked the Punjab IGP and Lahore police chief to take notice of the incident in light of a spike in street crimes over the past several months.