Karachi Police claimed to have arrested at least 37 suspected persons wearing Malaysian-dress and recovered huge quantity of automatic Russian-made weapons from their possessions in Landhi town on Friday. According to sources at Sharafi Goth police station, a police party on a tip-off carried out a major operation and intercepted a truck at Old Match Factory near Dawood Chowrangi and arrested 37 persons with illegal weapons.
It is said the arrested persons, hailing from Wazirstan, were going to occupy the said factory, they said. SP Landhi Haider Sultan told Business Recorder that the accused were pretending themselves as the security guards of Freedom Security Company. No representative of the said security company had so far approached the police nor the arrested persons showed license of the weapons they were carrying, he said.
The officer opined that such type of arms are not allowed to any security firm as they are prohibited, adding that police has recovered three Kalashnikovs, two 222 rifle, one MP5 rifle, and several Russian-made automatic short rifles from their custody. The suspected persons were wearing Malaysian-dress, he added.
SP Landhi said Police was investigating the matter to verify the relation of these suspected persons with the security company or any other organisation.
Police have registered 17 FIRs under Section 13-D with another FIR (221/2009) under Sections 448, 147, 109 and 134, against these persons and started further probe. Repeated attempt to contact CCPO for his version could not succeed.
Meanwhile, the Crime Investigation Department (CID) also claimed to have arrested five notorious dacoits from Korangi area. According to sources, a police party conducted raid at a house in the Korangi area and arrested the dacoits and recovered five TT pistols from their possession.
The arrested dacoits include Saleem alias Raheel, Faisal Iqbal, Mardan Shah, Kamran alias Kammu, Faisal Tapori. They said the arrested criminal were involved in many cases of dacoities, kidnapping for ransom, snatching of cash outside banks etc and were wanted by police of more than eight areas of the city.