Pakistani mob burns 4th robber to death in a week

KARACHI (Reuters) - An angry mob in the Pakistani city of Karachi set on fire two men caught mugging bus passengers on Saturday killing one of them, just three days after another mob had burnt three robbers to death, police said.

"They were robbing passengers on a bus when people from the neighbourhood caught them and beat them. They then set them on fire," said Aleem Jafri, the local police chief.

Police came to the rescue of the torched men, but one later died in hospital, while the other was being treated for serious burns, according to another police officer.

It is relatively commonplace for people to beat criminals they catch, sometimes to death, but television and newspaper images this week of the torched victims of vigilante justice shocked many Pakistanis.

Seventeen people were arrested following Wednesday's incident, police said.

The southern city has a reputation for violence of all types, criminal, political and militant.

There are many cases of motorists being robbed at gunpoint, while mobile phone snatching has reached epidemic proportions, with nearly 100 phones pinched each day, a senior police official told Reuters.

(Reporting by Imtiaz Shah; writing by Aftab Borka; editing by Myra MacDonald)