Mobile exchange goes wrong as 28-year-old shot dead by Karachi police

In a bizarre turn of events, a young man from Karachi has died from gunshot wounds after having been fired upon by policemen at Sharae Faisal. The death was preceded by a fraudulent mobile exchange and a wild police chase, sadly ending in the death of one while the other (the fraudster) ended up injured as well.

Muhammad Abrar was a 28-year-old junior instructor at a gym in Karachi. He had just rejoined his studies after a long hiatus and was a student of Intermediate. Routinely, he also took advantage of the online marketplace, Olx, to make some extra money on the side by selling second-hand phones. The incident occurred when he was trying to sell a Galaxy Note 4 Edge.

It all started when Abrar got an offer from Dil Nawaz on Olx for the phone. He, along with two of his friends, then headed to Saddar to a shopping center located near Lucky Star (decided by Nawaz).

“He had an offer of Rs27,000 from a neighbour but he received another offer of Rs30,000 Sunday night,” said Abrar’s elderly father Muhammad Azam. “We stopped him from going out so late in the night but he said he could not break his promise made to the customer.”

They met up with the potential buyer at the location. His friends waited outside as Abrar and Nawaz sat to finalize the deal in Nawaz’s car (a Honda Reborn). Soon after, Abrar came outside to consult with his friends as the buyer had given him two prize bonds worth Rs15,000 each instead of cash.

One of his friends, Naqsh, asked him to cancel the deal but as soon Abrar started to head back, Nawaz accelerated the car. Instead of just letting him go, Abrar grabbed on to an open rear window of the car and held on for dear life. The car still didn’t stop and Nawaz kept on speeding it away. Worried, Abrar’s friend tried to follow them on a motorcycle but lost them.

“We asked a police mobile parked outside a hotel on Sharae Faisal who told us to go to the Preedy police station” recalls Sheharyar, Abrar’s other friend.

They didn’t get any information from the Preedy police station and decided to check for him in the hospitals, just in case. They found their friend, Abrar, lying dead in Jinnah Hospital. He had suffered three gunshot wounds, one of which was in the head and resulted in his death. The buyer, Nawaz, had also suffered three gunshot wounds but was in stable condition. He narrated the rest of the story.

“I had an urgent need of a cell phone as I wanted to gift it to my sister, who had to leave the city Monday morning,” Nawaz, who has a prior record of involvement in fraud, told The Express Tribune. “I tried to speed away after finalizing the deal with prize bonds.”

With Abrar hanging on, Nawaz continued to speed away and was spotted by a police patrol car near Sharae Faisal. According to him, they opened fire on the car without any warning. Shot and wounded, he crashed into several cars and finally came to a stop near Sindhi Muslim Cooperative Housing Society.

The police, meanwhile, says that they were told the suspects were robbers and they had intercepted them. Then the policemen, who led the encounter, left. The police mobile responsible for opening fire belonged to the Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD).

“It seems the anti-terror police saw the car as suspicious because Abrar was shouting for help while hanging onto the window and they opened fire,” said the Ferozabad SHO Kanson Dean.

The CTD in-charge, Raja Omar Khatta, has said that three policemen had surrendered before him. The man, who opened fire at the car, has also been arrested from his residence.

“The car was speeding; a man was hanging out while shouting for help; we tried to stop the car but the driver did not stop,” says the prime suspect’s statement. “He even hit many other vehicles which forced me to open fire. We did not escape but left after informing the area police about the incident.”

Any further investigation will be conducted by an inquiry team, headed by CTD AIG Sanaullah Abbasi.

Editor’s Note: There has been a sharp increase in mobile phone snatching in recent days, especially in Karachi. We highly recommend our readers to be safe and to not take the law into their own hands. Here we have compiled a few tips we would want everyone to follow when dealing on OLX.

via Tribune