Over a dozen armed robbers in police uniform looted a passenger bus of Northern Areas Transport Service in the jurisdiction of the Kero police post of Kohistan Disrict after holding over 40 passengers hostages between Tuesday and Wednesday night.
The bus coming from Gilgit to Rawalpindi was intercepted at about 1AM by robbers, who blocked Karakuram Highway (KKH) at Kero, district Kohistan. Robbers, five or six of them were wearing police uniform, looted the commuters for more than an hour with great ease and took away all cash and other valuables including cell phones, video cameras and other belongings of the passengers.
Meanwhile, the same gang also looted and beaten three truck drivers who were also coming from Gilgit to Rawalpindi. It is worth mentioning that a police check post was set up but only few kilometers away from the spot of incident but no policeman reached at the site during the incident. The passengers told this correspondent that the robbers who were wearing police uniform said that they were getting only Rs 8, 000 salary per month and they were left with no option but to resort unfair means.
Such incidents are routine matters and are taking place frequently at the international route (KKH) but the government is not putting in place effective security arrangements to rescue the commuters from such brutal actions of the miscreants.
The victims of the recent incidents are mostly students who were coming after spending their summer vacations. Majority of them lost entire money they had brought from their homes and are stuck up in Rawalpindi, unable to move to Karachi and other cities due to this unfortunate incident.