LAHORE: Capital City Police Officer (CCPO) Additional IG Ghulam Mahmood Dogar has said the Crime Investigation Agency (CIA) has recovered looted property from criminals worth over Rs1.9 billion, the highest recovery by the CIA police from gangs, in the first eight months of the ongoing year in Lahore.

He told a press conference that calls on 15 emergency number went down by 12 per cent in crime against property.

He said the CIA police arrested 1,909 members of 247 hardened gangs this year, of them 145 gangs are of robbers. The police seized property worth Rs880 million from them.

Similarly, the antivehicle lifting squad recovered 604 vehicles and 7,815 motorbikes and arrested 1,538 proclaimed offenders andother hardened criminals.

Separately, the CIA arrested 341 members of 102 gang of robbers and recovered from them looted property worth over Rs310 million in the same period.

The police returned 41 cars, 250 motorbikes, 3.7kg gold ornaments and Rs900 million to the owners.

The CIA traced 38 murder cases and arrested 110 accused persons besides arresting 9,276 hardened criminals in 4,787 cases.

He said that the CIA also acted to eliminate networks of drug dealers by recovering 24kg charas from them during the first eight months of this year.

The CCPO said that the CIA police resolved a high-profile case of theft of a government department`s truck.

He said there were some reports that the truck might be used in any terrorist activity.