Four held as Clifton Driving Licence Branch theft case solved

Four suspects, including the prime suspect and three shopkeepers, have been arrested in the case of the recent theft at the Clifton Driving Licence Branch. The items stolen during the robbery that was reported on June 27 have also been recovered.

This was revealed by SP Clifton Uzair Ahmed on Friday at a press conference in his office. During the robbery, hard drives, RAM, processors, and a laptop were stolen from the driving licence office. The robbers first disconnected the system from the CCTV recording room before carrying out the theft.

It was initially suspected that an insider from the branch was involved. The investigators took the fingerprints of 80 employees and also went for geo-fencing. Although no CCTV footage of the robbery was found, the investigators obtained a video, in which a man, Hasan, son of Farooq, was seen moving in a suspicious manner.

Hasan was a painter by profession who had been engaged in a painting work at the office and was familiar with the office system. The SP said Hasan planned the robbery for several days and executed it on June 27.

A team that included Driving Licence Branch DSP Ahmed Ali Shah was formed to investigate the robbery that traced the robber and shopkeepers who bought the stolen items, recovering the stolen items.

The SP clarified that no data was stolen during the robbery as the driving licence database is kept at the Central Police Office. There was no data in the stolen items, he said, adding that the stolen items were used to run the computers.

The officer, however, termed the robbery a security lapse and said an inquiry was under way. He said the stolen items were sold in Saddar. He added that the robber was a young man. The shopkeepers should verify the ownership of the items before purchasing them, the SP said, adding that a hard disk worth Rs60,000 was sold for Rs10,000.

The suspect had planned the robbery with a partner but he executed it alone. He also confessed to carrying out the robbery alone, the SP said. The suspect told the interrogators that he had learnt about the computers through YouTube.

The total value of the stolen items was Rs2 million but they were sold for Rs200,000. The suspect had earlier done painting work at various police stations. He attempted his first robbery at the Bilal Colony police station.