Sindh police’s Friday shootout in DHA in which five suspected robbers were gunned down has become controversial with a local PTI leader claiming that one of the deceased was her family driver for years. LailaParveen and her husband Advocate Ali Hasnain have termed the police encounter fake. In a statement on Saturday, police investigators said the killed robbers and their ringleader Ghulam Mustafa belonged to Punjab’s Khanewal district while Ali Hasnain also hails from the same district. They said the robbers remained in contact with the advocate’s driver before they were killed in the shootout. The driver had also provided them a double-cabin vehicle which remained in their use for three days. Ali Hasnain, however, rejected the police version and said that the cops barged into his house at 4:00 am on Friday and took his mother and other guests as hostage. “The police took Abbas and my vehicle with them and pictures circulated on Chippa portal claimed that he was killed during a police encounter,” he said while blaming the police for killing his driver in a fake encounter. “I am a senior lawyer of the Sindh High Court and am currently present in Islamabad along with my wife,” he said adding that he was not aware regarding the identity of the four other people killed during the alleged police encounter. Ali Hasnain said that the vehicle seized by the police was in his use and Abbas use to drive another vehicle. “He used to take my mother to hospital regularly and normally spent the entire day performing her duties,” the lawyer said. Senior Superintendent Police (SSP) South Zubair Nazir claimed on Friday that five alleged dacoits were killed in a police shootout in Karachi’s DHA Phase IV. They broke into a house for dacoity and took all residents hostage. A police team immediately rushed to the site after receiving the information, he added. The dacoits opened fire on the police party and in retaliatory fire, all of the alleged criminals were killed, said Zubair Nazir.
