KARACHI: A band of more than a hundred dacoits attacked a police camp in Pakistan’s southern Sindh province and killed five law enforcement personnel, confirmed a senior official on Sunday, adding a strategy was being devised to launch an operation against the gang whose footprints had already been traced.
The southern region of Punjab and northern part of Sindh have experienced a reign of armed dacoits for decades who are notorious for kidnapping people for ransom. Several operations have been launched to get rid of these gangs, though law enforcers have so far failed to clear the area of their presence.
“A DSP [deputy superintendent police], two SHOs [station house officers] and two constables were killed and four others injured when over a hundred dacoits attacked a police camp in Ubauro’s Katcha area last night,” Tanveer Tunio, senior superintendent police (SSP) in Ghotki, told Arab News while informing that the camp had been recently established to deal with kidnappers in the area.
He said the operation was kicked off after a surge in ransom cases. Tunio informed the dacoits had recently abducted a 20-year-old man and two children.
“It came into our knowledge through technical and intelligence sources that the gang of a notorious dacoit Rahib Shar had kidnapped these people,” he said, adding the deceased DSP, Abdul Malik Bhutto, had taken his team to the area to rescue of the abductees.
They established the police camp at the house of another dacoit, Laloo Shar, who happened to be a close relative of the gang leader.
The criminal band carried out an attack on the police force with heavy weapons.
The official said the footprints of the accused had been traced and the area cordoned off for operation.
Chief Minister of Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah flew to Sukkur, the divisional headquarter of the region, on Sunday to meet the families of the slain policemen and devise an operation strategy.
“The chief minister will preside an important law and order meeting,” said a spokesperson of the administration, “in which a strategy will be devised regarding how to carry out operation against the dacoits.”
The chief minister is also accompanied by the province’s inspector general of police, Ghulam Nabi Memon, added the spokesperson.
