|
Karachi: Dozens of angry citizens beat up two alleged robbers and set their bodies on fire in a central neighbourhood of Karachi, the second such incident in less than a week.
One of the robbers, identified as Danish, succumbed to his severe burns and died in a local hospital, while the condition of his accomplice, Imran, remains critical, doctors said.
Police said the mob caught the robbers - both in their early 20s - when they were trying to rob the passenger of a bus at gun-point in the central Sakhi Hasan area of Karachi.
Shouting abuses, the mob thrashed both the robbers and then threw petrol on their bodies and set them ablaze, witnesses said.
The mob also attacked the police and paramilitary rangers when they tried to rescue the robbers. A paramilitary soldier also suffered burn wounds in the rescue operation, police officials said.
Danish and Imran are both residents of low-income locality Orangi Town and were jobless.
On Wednesday, in another such shocking incident, three bandits were burned alive by the mob when they were trying to flee after looting an apartment near the Timber Market.
"These anarchic conditions are the direct result of the failure of the state institutions to protect the life and property of the citizens," Iqbal Haider, secretary general of the independent Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, told Gulf News.
"This tendency of people trying to take the law into their own hands cannot be approved. No one should be punished by any manner other than law. We condemn such barbaric acts."
But many of the residents of Karachi say that "instant justice" remains the only way to beat criminals.
"Almost every second person in Karachi has been a victim of street crime, or car-snatching, or robbery," said Raffat Shaikh, a shopkeeper. "If there are a few more such incidents of mob violence, criminals will think twice before looting a person," he said.
|
