KARACHI, April 17: An 18-year-old woman was killed on Thursday by fleeing dacoits, one of whom was also killed in a shootout with police, in Landhi. Elsewhere in the city, three more people were killed in acts of violence, witnesses and police said.
Shah Latif Town police said three bandits barged into the house of Ashiq Ali, a worker at a steel manufacturing unit, in Zafar Town at around 11am when only children and women were present.
The police said the bandits held the inmates hostage at gunpoint and asked them not to raise any alarm.
However, they said, the womenfolk could not hold back their screams and the intruders opened fire when Ashiq’s eldest daughter tried to run out of the house.
The police said the woman was fatally wounded by the bandits who became panicky and ran out of the house after the shooting.
They said head constable Afsar Khan and constable Sabir Ali, who were patrolling the area on their motorcycle, heard gun shots and immediately rushed to the crime scene.
The police said the fleeing dacoits opened fire on the police party to escape under the cover of fire. They said the policemen retaliated and hit one of the fleeing dacoits.
They said that two dacoits however fled the scene amid heavy firing.
Later, the bodies of the suspected dacoit and the victim woman were shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre where sources said the victim woman had sustained a bullet wound to her head from a close range as the bullet had gone through her skull.
They said the suspected dacoit, who was in his mid 20s, had received three bullets in his upper torso.
The body of the victim woman, Nadia Ali, was later handed over to her family, who took it to their hometown in Punjab.
The police said a national identity card was recovered from the pocket of the killed suspect that identified him as Salim Sarwer, resident of Vehari, Punjab.
However, they said the identity of the suspect was yet to be ascertained as the NIC could be bogus.
The police said the body of the suspect was kept at the Edhi morgue for want of final identification.
A case against unknown culprits was registered by the Shah Latif police on the complaint of the victim’s father under Sections 302, 396 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code.
Two shot dead
Two middle-aged men were shot dead near Shafiq Mor in North Karachi by two unknown assailants.
Federal B. Area police said two men were going on their motorcycle when they were attacked by two culprits on foot.
The police said the attackers disappeared in the lanes after their swift operation.
They said one of the victims died on the spot and the other, who was fatally wounded, died at the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.
The victims were idenfitied as Subhan Ali, son of Hazrat Ali, 42, resident of Shafique Colony, North Karachi, and Atique Ullah, 40, resident of Afghan Basti near Al Asif Square in Sohrab Goth.
Hospital sources said both the victims received multiple bullet wounds in their upper torsos from a pointblank range as the bullets pierced through their bodies.
The police suspected a personal feud to be behind the double murder.
Young man found shot dead
A 20-year-old salesman was found shot dead in his garment shop in Mohammad Ali Housing Society.
Bahadurabad police said the victims’ relatives took away the body without a postmortem examination.
The victim was identified as Umair, resident of Delhi Colony.
SHO Sajjadul Hasan told Dawn that the police were informed of the body with a bullet wound at around 12 noon.
He said the body was transported to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre in an Edhi ambulance for an autopsy. However, he said, the victim’s relatives did not let the medico-legal officer conduct the postmortem.
The SHO said the victim’s relatives also beat head constable Naseer who was accompanying the body in the ambulance before they took away the body.
He said the victim was shot a single bullet to his chest.
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