KARACHI, Oct 15: A 28-year-old dacoit was killed and his two accomplices – a 20-year-old woman and her younger brother – were arrested in the small hours of Wednesday in a shootout with Bahadurabad police in Dohraji Colony, police and witnesses said.

The Bahadurabad police said that a gang of three dacoits, including a young woman, were robbing a group of residents on Ghazi Salahuddin Road at around 1.25am when an onlooker informed the police.

The SP of the Gulshan-i-Iqbal Town, Sohail Zafar Chattha, told Dawn that the bandits opened fire on a police party that had rushed to the spot on the tip-off. “One of the dacoits was killed and another wounded when the raiding party returned fire,” he added.

He said that the wounded suspect, Ahsan Iqbal, and his sister Laiba Iqbal, children of Tariq Iqbal, were arrested and two pistols and the looted property, including five mobile phones and Rs8,000, were seized from them.

The dead dacoit was identified as Ifrahim, son of Faryad Ali, a resident of Mehran Town, a shantytown in the Korangi Industrial Area police limits.

The body and the wounded suspect were shifted to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for medico-legal proceedings.

Hospital sources said the dead dacoit had received five bullets, two each in the abdomen and the chest and one to the left hip.

They said the wounded suspect sustained a bullet in his right leg and he was admitted to the hospital.

The police said the two siblings were the residents of Mehmoodabad. They were booked and arrested in a case (FIR 207/2008) under Sections 395, 324, 353 and 34 of the Pakistan Penal Code on the complaint of Mohammed Yasin, one of the robbed men.

Mohammed Yasin reported to the police that he, along with his friends and area people, was sitting in front of House 197 when the three dacoits, including the woman, arrived there on a Honda 125cc motorcycle.

He stated that the bandits held him and the others hostage and started relieving them of their cellphones and cash.

The complainant said that a police party reached the spot while the dacoits were still robbing their victims. He said that one of the dacoits was killed instantly and the other was wounded in the shootout with the police.

The police said Ifrahim had also lived in Mehmoodabad before recently moving to his new home.The police said the dead dacoit was on bail in six criminal cases registered against him by the Brigade, Defence Housing Authority, Mehmoodabad and Korangi Industrial Area police.

The police said they would produce the arrested siblings before a judicial magistrate on Thursday to obtain their custody for investigation.

Ex-army man, woman killed

Two people, including a retired army captain, were killed and another wounded on Wednesday in a traffic accident near the ICI Company on the National Highway.

Bin Qasim police said that a fast-moving truck collided with a Hi-roof carrying the manager and two security guards of the Dragon Security Company at around 2pm.

The witnesses said that one of the occupants of the van was killed on the spot, and two others were wounded, one of them fatally.

The police said the body and the injured were taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre, where the deceased was identified as retired captain Bakhtawar, hailing from Oghi, Mansehra.

They said the fatally wounded security guard, Manzoor Hussain, resident of Sukkur, died in the hospital during treatment.

Sources at the JMPC’s medico-legal section told Dawn that the other injured guard, Najibur Rehman, was in a stable condition.

The police said that the truck driver sped away after the accident, but the police had got the registration number of his vehicle.

They said the police had picked up a piece of the truck’s accessories, inscribed with its registration number, from the spot as it was believed to have been broken off during the collision.

The police said that efforts were being made to track down the absconding driver and his vehicle.

They said a case was yet to be registered as the families of the two victims had taken the bodies to their respective hometowns.

A 55-year-old woman was killed and her three young children were injured by a hit-and-run dumper in New Karachi in the small hours of Wednesday.

The police said the victim woman, Shamim, wife of Mazahir Hussain, a resident of Sector 5-F, was returning home with her children -- Reema, 14, Halima, 12, and Zaheer Abbas, 16 – after attending a marriage function when a recklessly driven dumper hit their rickshaw.

They said the woman died instantly and her body and the injured children were shifted to the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.

The police said the rickshaw driver, Abdur Rauf, was also injured in the accident that occurred at around 1.30am.

Hospital sources said the injured people were discharged from the hospital after treatment.

The police have registered a case against the unknown driver of the unknown vehicle on the complaint of the rickshaw driver.