Escape plan of 30 psychiatric patients ends after joyride crashes
At least 34 psychiatric patients under treatment at a rehabilitation center in Karachi escaped their hospice on Thursday. But their escape only became apparent to the public when they stole a nearby parked jeep and went for a joyride. The episode ended when the ride came to a crashing halt.
on Thursday morning, around 34 psychiatric patients receiving treatment at the Al Zehra Rehabilitation Center in Block-19 of North Nazimabad fled.
They were being served with water and other edibles by an orderly on Thursday morning when the patients ganged up on him, beaten him up and rushed for the doors.
They overpowered the guards and finally escaped the facility.
Outside, they noticed a jeep parked in the driveway of a neighboring house.
Somehow, the patients managed to spark the jeep into life and attempted to make a swift getaway.
Upon noticing his four-wheeler missing, the owner of the vehicle rushed to the Shara-e-Noor Jahan police station to lodge a complaint.
While he was waiting for the FIR to be registered when, Afridi said just a few minutes they got a call from the dispatch at the police helpline 15 Madadgar that some people had crashed their jeep into the car of another person and fled on foot, abandoning the vehicle.
When police cross-checked the vehicle, it was the same vehicle which had been stolen from near the rehab facility.
Police recovered the stolen vehicle from the site.
To understand what had happened, police requested nearby facilities to provide recordings through their closed-circuit television (CCTV) cameras.
Footage captured on the CCTV showed that more than two dozen people had rushed out of the hospice.
Some of them broke into the car (jeep) and sped away.
When police questioned the administration of the psychiatric center, they were told that some 34 patients had managed to flee.
Tassawar Hussain, a guard at the rehabilitation center, told SAMAA TV that a staffer, as per routine, went to serve water to the patients at 10:00am, but they attacked him and fled away.
According to Hussain, 106 patients received treatment at the rehabilitation centre and around a third managed to escape.
By the time this report was filed, just three of the patients had returned to the center while the rest were on the run.
