KARACHI: Pakistani police arrested a gang of six suspected female robbers in the southern port city of Karachi on Sunday, accusing them of using hypnosis to rob their victims.
Dr. Uzair Ahmed, the senior superintendent of police for investigation in the city’s Malir district, disclosed that the inter-provincial gang of women had previously committed robberies in Karachi, Hyderabad, Sukkur, Lahore and other cities of Punjab by hypnotizing their victims.
While the scientific validity of hypnosis as a crime-inducing tool is often debated, numerous cases have been reported in Karachi in the past where victims have claimed to have been hypnotized before being robbed.
“We have arrested a gang leader and five other women for looting citizens while using hypnosis to manipulate them,” Dr. Ahmed told Arab News.
He said the remaining members of the 25-member gang are still at large.
“The modus operandi of the gang was that they would come to Karachi, stay in low-priced hotels in downtown Saddar, conduct robberies in various parts of the city and then return to their homes in Punjab,” Dr. Ahmed revealed.
He said the women would enter people’s homes by using various excuses, often asking for jobs or offering to sew clothes.
“Once inside, the gang leader, an expert in hypnosis, would engage the women while others would loot them,” the police officer said.
He said the gang also had male members, whose job was to provide logistics and transportation to the women.
The arrested women have been identified as Sahiba alias Hina, Babli Maqbool, Kaneez Fareed, Sahiba Fatma, Lubna Shah, and Salman Hussain. Police said they had recovered Rs4 million [$14,418] from their possession.
“Two families of victims have also identified these women,” Dr. Ahmed said.
Various robberies over the years have been reported from Karachi in which the victims claimed they were hypnotized before robbers made away with their valuable items.
Last year, a shopkeeper in Karachi said he was hypnotized and robbed on the city’s busy Burns Road. The suspect was later arrested and charged with the crime.
In another incident reported from the port city in 2021, a man was robbed of Rs 3.5 million [$12,616] after being hypnotized in the city’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal area.
