POLICE and the Hang Seng Bank yesterday offered a $2 million reward

for information leading to the arrest of the "cold-blooded" killer

who gunned down a security guard during a bank robbery in Tsuen Wan

last week.

The offer came as Police Commissioner Tsang Yam-pui pledged greater

cross-border co-operation after the fatal shooting and a second Tsuen

Wan armed robbery on Monday in which a guard was shot three times.

Police yesterday issued sketches of the killer described as 1.8

metres tall, of strong build and with short hair to police officers

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and the public.

Assistant commissioner Yam Tat-wing said witnesses had seen the man's

face before he put on the black mask as he robbed the Belvedere Garden

Square branch of the Hang Seng Bank last Wednesday.

He said there was no evidence the man who shot dead security guard

Khan Zafar Iqbal, 31, and fled with $500,000 had any accomplices.

"The lone culprit moved very quickly," Yam said . "He is a calm,

cold-blooded and brutal robber." Yam refused to disclose whether the

gunman's .38-calibre revolver was a stolen police weapon, which

officers suspected at the time of the robbery.

"The disclosure of further information will jeopardise the police

investigation," he said, adding that the case was being handled by

the Organised Crime and Triad Bureau.

There has been no confirmation of any mainland link in the

murder-robbery or the one on Monday when four men were arrested on an

MTR train after snatching $1 million from a security van outside a

Jockey Club centre in Tsuen Wan and shooting guard Ng Kar-man, 26, who

tried to stop them.

Tsang said police were liaising with mainland security officials to

tighten security and prevent the movement of criminals and weapons

across the border.

He was speaking after visiting Ng in Queen Elizabeth Hospital, where

he is being guarded by armed police wearing bullet-proof vests. The

condition of the guard, who suffered three gunshot wounds in the

shootout with the robbers, was upgraded from critical to serious

yesterday.

Both Tsang and Secretary for Security Regina Ip defended the police

decision to confront the suspects on a crowded MTR train at Prince

Edward. "We had to make a spur-of-the-moment decision," Tsang said.

"If we had given chase later, the situation could have been even

worse."

The men were seen boarding the train in Tsuen Wan after the robbery,

which occurred about 5.35pm. Police ordered the train not to stop

until it reached Prince Edward station, where they boarded it.

Rejecting criticism that the police ambush had placed the public in

undue danger, Ip said: "It's easy for people who weren't there to

criticise. If police hadn't rushed in and made the arrest people would

have said they were incapable. Our police force has received strict

training and knows how to conduct action in crowded situations without

injuring any innocent people.""The police caught the robbers and did

not hurt anyone else."

They were apprehended at about 6pm.

Ng, who returned the robbers' fire despite wounds to his chest and

arms, was praised by police for his bravery. After the train arrests,

police conducted a series of raids and nabbed six others, including

two local men and a mainland woman holding two-way permits. They were

detained for inquiries.

elilau@hk-imail.com

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