Five police officers were martyred after the bandits of the Katcha area attacked a police control point in Rahim Yar Khan, a Punjab police statement said on Friday.
For decades, dozens of armed bandit gangs with sophisticated weapons have operated with impunity in northern Sindh, as well as in southern Punjab. The kidnappings for rescue, the extortion rackets that paralyze local companies, brutal murders and looting of people on the main roads have become a daily reality.
According to a statement from the office of the Punjab Inspector General, almost 40 bandits, using launches and grenades, attacked the Sheikhani police picket in the Katcha area, located between Chowk Sewetra and Chowk Mahi near the Guddu-Kashmore road on Thursday night.
“During the attack, elite force police, including Muhammad Irfan, Muhammad Salem and Nukhail de Bahawalnagar, along with Khalil and Ghazanfar of Rahim Yar Khan, were martyred,” said the statement, adding that a bandit was also killed when the police retalted.
After the sudden attack, the police began a search operation against the bandits in the area, he added.
The Inspector General (IG), the Punjab Police, Dr. Usman Anwar, realized the incident and requested a report by the Regional Police officer, Bahawalpur.
“IG Usman also instructed the Rahim Yar Khan district officer, Irfan Ali Sammon, to immediately stop the bandits involved in the attack,” the statement added.
The funerary sentences of martyred police will be offered in the police lines of Rahim Yar Khan at 2:30 pm today, he added.
Last month, different Dacoit gangs of the Katcha area, through their publications and videos on social networks, had directly challenged the police order and said they would attack them. As seen in the videos, the Dacoits were equipped with the last sophisticated weapons, according to the statement.
According to the statement, the bandits had recently attacked trucks with stone transport near the Hajipur area to extort the money from the truck owner. Similarly, the local locals complained that several bandit gangs still had complete control over different Indo River islands.
In March, three people were killed and killed by Dacoits in the Jamaldin Wali area of Tehsil Sadiqabad, near the Indo River, to avenge the murder of a Dacoit Youtuber.
In January, three members of the Hindu community of the Chowk Sawetra area near Bhong were allegedly kidnapped by Dacoits of Katcha.
