The Karachi police have claimed to have arrested a group of robbers, including a CTD official, who would use police vans to steal vehicles carrying cooking oil.

The police arrested four members of the group near Garden Police Headquarters on Friday. The suspected policeman, named Zafar Iqbal, was on the run but was later arrested after the arrested suspects’ statements, they claimed.

A first information report was registered under sections 395 (punishment for dacoity), 365 (kidnapping or abducting with intent secretly and wrongfully to confine person), 34 (criminal acts done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) and 412 (dishonestly receiving property stolen in the commission of a decoity) at the New Karachi Industrial Area Police station against the culprits.

The complainant alleged that he was stopped by a police van at the Chand Market Sector 5G in New Karachi at 3pm while he was carrying cooking oil in a pickup van. “Six armed police cops dropped me at Tower at 5pm after driving me through several places.”

After being dropped off, the driver of the pickup “called his employer” who complained to the police. The police traced the vehicle to a shop in the Garden area and arrested the four suspects while one escaped after seeing the police, as per the FIR.

CCTV footage of the alleged crime has also emerged where it shows a mobile van overtaking and stopping a pickup truck carrying tin cans of cooking oil.

The Karachi police said that the alleged robbers would use a police van to stop and snatch vehicles carrying cooking oil and offload it in a godown. The godown keeper is also suspected to be an accomplice of the gang.

The suspects would drop the vehicle driver at an unknown location after shifting the cooking oil, police said, adding that during the last month, multiple such robberies were reported in several parts of the city.