Robberies increase in Karachi as Ramadan approaches

• Karachi has started to experience increasing robberies mere days before the holy month of Ramadan.
• In latest incident, dacoits escaped with over 30 safe deposit lockers’ worth of valuables during a looting incident at a private bank.
• In a separate incident, armed robbers fled with Rs200,000 worth of cash from a doughnut chain near Karachi’s Bait-ul-Mukarram Mosque.

KARACHI: Crimes, specifically robberies, have started increasing here in the city mere days before the holy month of Ramadan is set to commence, with robbers fleeing Sunday with valuables from more than two dozen lockers at a private bank and assailants looting a local eatery as well, in two separate incidents.

Four armed robbers managed to escape with cash worth Rs200,000 from the outlet of an international doughnut chain near Karachi’s famed Bait-ul-Mukarram Mosque in Gulshan-e-Iqbal area.

In another incident, robbers cleaned out at least 31 lockers of a private bank near Sakhi Hassan Chowrangi.

Upon hearing news of the looting, locker owners rushed to the bank and criticised the authorities’ alleged negligence.

During the robbery, the security alarm went off and the dacoits came face-to-face with the guards as well, Geo News quoted retired Capt Haider Raza — the senior superintendent of police (SSP) for Karachi’s Specialised Investigation Unit (SIU) — as saying.

The cop explained how the private bank’s guard had gone for dinner shortly before the robbery took place. However, the dacoits — who seemed to have been waiting for him — entered the bank alongside when he returned.

The suspects broke into 34 of the bank’s 260 lockers but escaped with valuables from 31 of them since the remaining three were empty, police said, adding that the details of the lockers and what they contained were collected and a search for the suspects also began.

Second such incident

The aforementioned bank robbery is the second such incident this year after armed robbers had last month looted more than Rs1 million from a bank in the New Karachi neighbourhood.

According to the surveillance video of the incident obtained by Geo News, armed robbers had fired shots as they fled the private bank. The footage showed two men running towards their motorcycles, with one carrying what appeared to be a Kalashnikov rifle and the other a pistol.

Authorities had said at the time an encounter took place between the robbers and police but the suspects managed to flee, with the man carrying the pistol firing two shots into the air, probably to scare onlookers.

The four robbers had injured two security guards of the bank by hitting them with the butts of their guns. Police had said the assailants made away with Rs1,035,000.

Article source: https://www.thenews.com.pk/latest/818595-robberies-increase-in-karachi-as-ramadan-approaches