SUKKUR: A police official was killed and his colleague was wounded in a shootout with armed dacoits near a police picket within the jurisdiction of Madeji police station in Shikarpur district late on Thursday evening.

According to a police statement, a gang of dacoits attacked the picket late last night. In the ensuing exchange of fire, police official Mohammad Ramzan Bhutto embraced martyrdom and his colleague Niaz Hussain Rahujo suffered wounds, it said.

However, sources in the area give a different version of the manner of the cop`s death and claimed that some gangsters were busy looting commuters and motorists near the picket when the two policemen rushed there on a motorcycle to stop the robbers after receiving report about them.

The armed dacoits opened indiscriminate fire at the policemen as they saw the cops coming to them, they said.

Locals suspected the two police officials might have been ambushed by Kalhoro tribesmen in retaliation for a gangster`s killing by police a few days back.

The dacoits managed to escape before police reinforcements reached there and shifted the body and the wounded to nearby hospital.

The martyred policeman`s funeral prayer was offered at the Police Lines Shikarpur on Friday. It was attended by Larkana DIG Nasir Aftab, Shikarpur SSP Shahzaib Chachar, DSR Rangers, senior police officers, the martyr`s family and representatives of civil society.

The body was then sent to his ancestral village, Naudero in Larkana district, for burial. The martyr has left three sons, a daughter and a widow to mourn him.

Police raid suspects` hideouts A strong force drawn from different police stations of the district along with personnel of Rangers led by Shikarpur SSP raided several villages of Kalhora community in Madeji riverine area to nab the suspected attackers involved in attack on the policemen.

As the suspected assailants had already escaped the area, the police team demolished their hideouts, shelters and houses, said police.

Dacoits upload hostages` video An unidentified gang of kidnappers, who had abducted four men from Chak town in Shikarpur district three days ago, uploaded their video on social media on Friday, showing the victims being tortured and appealing for help.

The hostages` families said that police had completely failed to recover Abdul Waheed, Rahib, Irfan and Qadir Bakhsh Tanwari, residents of Essa Tanwari village in Chak, and appealed to higher authorities to get their loved ones freed unharmed from the clutches of the kidnappers.