SIALKOT: A bank’s security guards allegedly shot two dacoits dead on Tuesday, foiling their bid to snatch Rs1 million from a bank official at Daska.

According to police, Faisal Khan, Additional Manager Operations of Bank Alfalah, Daska city branch, came out of the bank to handover Rs1 million to a client, when two dacoits took him hostage at gunpoint and attempted to snatch the cash from him.

As Mr Khan put up resistance, the bank’s security guards intervened, snatched pistols from the dacoits and shot them dead on the spot, the police said.

On being informed of the incident, District Police Officer Mustansar Feroz visited the bank and inspected the scene.

The dacoits were later identified as Safdar Butt and his brother-in-law Ameer Khan, both residents of Ranjhai village of Daska tehsil.

However, some eyewitnesses said that after being shot the dacoits did not die immediately and kept crying with pain for more than half an hour in front of the bank on the busy Bank Road.

They said police also remained there but did not shift the critically injured dacoits to the Civil Hospital that was located just half a kilometre away from the spot.

They said people gathering around the dacoits kept filming them with their mobile phones and many of them uploaded the clip on social media.

Some of them even kicked the injured dacoits in presence of police.

Later, the police, after ensuring that the dacoits had died, shifted their bodies to the hospital for autopsy.

BOY KILLED: A minor son of a local labourer was killed on Tuesday, while he himself and his three daughters were injured seriously when the roof of their single-room mud house collapsed at Nungliyaan village in Pasrur tehsil.

As per locals, labourer Abdul Ghafoor along with his children was asleep in the room when its dilapidated roof suddenly collapsed, leaving his 10-year-old son Ali Husnain dead on the spot.

Ghafoor (53) and his daughters -- Rubi (18), Mariyam (14) and Fiza (8) -- were seriously injured in the incident.

Rescuers 1122 staff, with the help of locals, retrieved the boy’s body from the debris.

They also rescued the injured persons, who were shifted to Pasrur Tehsil Headquarters Hospital in a critical condition.

Published in Dawn, April 29th, 2020