KARACHI, Feb 21: A suspected bank robber with a bomb strapped to his body was killed and a policeman wounded critically in a shootout on Saturday at the Wholesale Fruit and Vegetable Market, better known as New Sabzi Mandi, witnesses and the police said.

They said the man wearing a suicide jacket and carrying a hand-grenade entered a branch of the MCB at around 12.10pm and opened fire on a police constable, who also returned fire.

Witnesses said that the man came into the bank, pointed his gun at the policeman and screamed: “I am a Taliban, get out of my way.” They said the attacker opened fire on the policeman as he pounced upon him.

The witnesses said both the attacker and the policeman were wounded in the exchange of fire and the suspect showed the wounded constable a dynamite-laden belt strapped to his waist, threatening to blow himself up if anyone tried to get close to him.

However, they said, the policeman pounced on the suspect and wrestled with him until a bank security guard joined the scuffle and relieved the suspect of the suicide jacket. The police said the suspect was killed on the spot and the policeman received six bullets in the lower torso during the struggle.

The SP of Gadap, Rao Anwar, told Dawn that the explosives-laden belt was thrown into a heap of onions and potatoes outside the bank and the suspect was overpowered by the injured policeman and the security guard before he could detonate the bomb.

A bomb disposal squad official said the bomb, containing five kilograms of 12 dynamite rods, was attached to a mobile phone. He said the locally assembled device could have exploded if a call was made on the cellular phone attached to the device.

“It could have caused damage in a radius of half a kilometre if it had exploded,” he said.

The official said the bomb disposal squad defused the device by disconnecting it from the mobile phone.

The wounded policeman, Mohammed Aslam, was taken to a nearby private hospital, where he was being operated upon till the filing of this report.

The police said the wounded policeman was promoted to the rank of head constable in recognition of his act of gallantry.

The suspect’s body was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for a post-mortem examination.

Medico-Legal Officer Dr Syed Mazharuddin told Dawn that the suspect received at least 11 bullets from a close range as all the bullets pierced the body. He said the suspect, who appeared to be in his early 30s, received four bullets in the chest, five in the thighs and the hip, and two in the head.

The police said they believed that the accomplices of the suspect fled the scene when they saw him being overpowered by the policeman and the security guard.

They said the suspects were believed to have planned the suicide bombing in case of a bungled robbery.

Young woman run over

A 20-year-old woman was killed when she was run over by a fast-moving dumper at Qazzafi Chowk in Orangi Town No 1.

The police said that the victim, Rozina Bhatti, daughter of Mohammed Shafique Bhatti, was riding pillion with her brother, Mohammed Asghar, on a bike when she lost her balance, fell from the bike and a fast-moving dumper ran over her. She died instantly. Witnesses said that people caught the driver, Habib Ullah, and roughed him up before he was handed over to the police.

The woman was going with her brother to the Board of Intermediate Education to retrieve her intermediate certificate.

The police registered a case (46/2009) against the driver under Section 320 of the Pakistan Penal Code for killing the woman by his reckless driving on the complaint of the victim’s brother, Mohammed Asghar Bhatti.

The body was shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital for a medico-legal examination. Sources at the hospital’s medico-legal section told Dawn that the woman received multiple fractures and fatal wounds to the head.

Man knocked down

A 32-year-old man was knocked down by a fast-moving minibus near KDA flats in North Karachi.

The Surjani Town police said that the victim, Hafeezur Rehman, son of Aziz Ahmed, was crossing the road near Bhains Colony More in Sector 4-D when at around 1.30pm a fast-moving minibus of route W-55 knocked him down. He was killed on the spot.

The police said that no case was registered against the minibus driver, Mohammed Ghaffar, who was taken into custody.

They said that the police were waiting for some one from the victim’s family, who were busy in the funeral, to lodge an FIR.

They said that the victim was a salesman with a private firm and resident of Sector 2, North Karachi.