KARACHI, Aug 16: Authorities said on Saturday that the prime suspect in the HBL locker heist was the security guard who wrote a letter giving an eye-witness account of the crime before running away, purportedly under fear of being falsely implicated in the case.

An FIR (574/08) was registered by the Preedy police against the private security guard Shah Mohammed who, the investigators believe, used the letter as a decoy to divert the course of the investigation away from himself.

SSP Saddar, Dr Amir Shaikh, told Dawn that a special meeting, with the city police chief in the chair, was held by senior police officials to chalk out a strategy to crack one of the biggest cases of theft ever witnessed in the city. The meeting was attended, amongst others, by DIG South Iqbal Mahmood, DIG Investigations Ghulam Qadir Thebo, SSP Anti-violent Crime Cell Farooq Awan, SP Investigations South-11 Niaz Ahmed Khoso and SP Gul Hameed Sammu.

“We have a few tips and we’re following them up to trace the prime suspect, who is from a remote part of the NWFP,” stated the SSP Saddar. “Unfortunately, the crime scene investigation yielded no fingerprints.”

Shah Mohammed and an unknown number of accomplices are suspected of having broken into the lockers using gas-powered welding equipment between Thursday night and Friday morning, and taking away cash, prize bonds, savings certificates and other valuables worth millions of rupees.

The exact value of the looted goods has not been ascertained as yet since most of the affected depositors are still in the process of assessing their losses.

One such depositor, a housewife from a Kothari family, told Dawn that she had shared the locker with her mother and sister and that between them, there were over 270 tolas of gold and gem jewellery in the rented strongbox. “We thought our valuables would be safe but we clearly lived in a fool’s paradise,” she commented.

According to an official of HBL’s Mansfield Street Branch, most of the depositors were residents of Saddar and its adjoining areas, and belonged mainly to different families of the Memon community.

‘Letter was a decoy’

The SSP Saddar confirmed that the suspected guard, Shah Mohammed, had addressed the letter to one of his colleagues, Gulistan, who had not been present when the theft took place. “The letter was aimed at fooling the investigators,” he said.

The letter written says that Shah Mohammed was asleep at the bank when four men woke him up and took him hostage at gunpoint before breaking into the lockers. In it, the guard states that he is fleeing out of fear that the police will not believe his version of events and would eventually arrest him and subject him to torture.

One of the investigators told Dawn that security officials at the city’s entry and exit points had been alerted since it was believed that Shah Mohammed may still be hiding here. “We have also alerted our sources to track the prime suspect down and a close watch is being kept on his friends and relatives. He added that a team would be dispatched to Darra Adam Khel and other parts of the NWFP only if investigators received a tip about the suspect’s presence there.

The investigator said that the suspect’s elder brother, Saeed, had also been booked and arrested by the Taimuria police for involvement in a robbery case. “He is still in jail and his visitors are being monitored,” he added.

Bank manager Shahzad Akhter, who lodged the case against the bank guard, told Dawn that most of the affected depositors had already obtained claim forms and have been told to submit the claims by next week.