CIA kills four hardened criminals, claims encounters not fake

In what appears to be staged encounters, the city police’s Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) on Monday claimed that four hardened criminals had been killed in two skirmishes with law enforcement officials. In the first incident, two under-custody bank robbers were killed when, according to the police, their accomplices opened fire on a police van transporting them from Gujrat to Lahore.
The CIA had arrested two suspected bank robbers, Dilbar Khan and Hameed Khan, residents of Kohat from Nawankot in a raid few weeks ago. According to the police, Dilbar and Hameed were being transported from Gujrat where they had led security officials to several gangs involved in bank robberies, when unidentified men riding two cars intercepted the police vehicle near Shahdara on GT Road.
Police claimed that the men opened fire on them, and were shot at in return. They said that no police personnel was injured in the attackers’ firing but Dilbar and Hameed, and another prisoner accompanying them fell prey to the assailants’ bullets.
A police team was sent to the purported crime scene to investigate the story.
According to sources, the investigation team has reported that the area where the attackers chose to raid the police party was deserted and there’s no chance of finding any witness.
The investigation team has also raised question as to why the police van carrying the prisoners went off the main highway into the fields.
Meanwhile early on Monday, a CIA Iqbal Town team gunned down two wanted criminals allegedly involved in several serious crimes, including the murders of a police constable and a trader and a large number of armed robberies.
Per police claims, a CIA team led by Sub-Inspector Maqsood Hayat set up a picket near Riaz Falooda shop following a tip-off that some wanted criminals would pass their way. The police signaled two people riding a motorcycle to stop for checking but the motorcyclists opened fire on them and fled towards the Doongi Ground in Huma Block of Iqbal Town.
The police team chased the motorcyclists, who kept firing indiscriminately in their direction. The police returned fire, killing both bike riders. The police found two pistols and several bullets near the killed men’s bodies. Their motorcycle No. LEZ-786 was later found to have been snatched at gunpoint from Gulshan-e-Ravi a few days ago.
The dead criminals were identified as Imran Masih and Muhammad Arshad and some 150 cases of heinous nature were registered against them in different police stations of the city including Islampura, Misri Shah, New Anarkali, Lytton Road and Gulshan-e-Ravi.
Imran and Arshad had also allegedly killed a police constable of Ichhra police and a trader in PST Colony in Lytton Road police precincts.
However, police sources said that the two criminals were already in CIA custody and they had been killed in a staged encounter. The CIA team claims that the encounter was authentic.