Insufficient protection: Businessmen exhort Rangers on extortion

Corporate leaders say the anti-extortion measures adopted after meeting with Gen Kayani have fizzled out.

KARACHI:

The business community has expressed displeasure with the performance of Pakistan Rangers in ensuring their safety and security from extortionists in the city.

Although they were assured by Chief of Army Staff General Kayani in a September 21 meeting that all steps would be taken for their protection, the ‘cosmetic measures’ announced have fizzled out in the months since then.

In their meeting with Gen Kayani, the 30-member Karachi-based business delegation made four key demands: a direct hot-line with the DG Rangers Headquarters; a permanent role for Rangers in policing; the establishment of new Rangers pickets at key locations in industrial zones; and certain constitutional changes that would ensure speedy trials of criminals in the courts.

Businessman and senior council member of the Site Association of Trade and Industries, Wahab Lakhani, who attended that meeting on September 21, said that although Rangers had increased their patrolling and established new pickets in his industrial zone almost immediately after the meeting, the steps were rolled back after some time.

“All their efforts have gone into cold storage,” he said, also suggesting there was a dire need for law enforcement authorities to take sustained action against extortionists for at least one whole year.

Lakhani said the Rangers helpline did provide some help, but “one needs a forceful follow-up to the complaint.”

Gen Kayani had instructed the then DG Rangers Ejaz Chaudhry last September to look into the concerns of the business community. Chaudhry has now been posted as the Corp Commander Karachi, while Major General Rizwan Akhtar has taken over as the DG Rangers Sindh.

Mohammad Saleem Farooqi, adviser to the law-and-order sub-committee of the Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, termed the steps taken by Pakistan Rangers since the meeting with Gen Kayani ‘cosmetic measures’ that did not significantly reduce the threats faced by businessmen from extortionists.

He said Pakistan Rangers were also given a special room at the KCCI building in order to report threats from extortionists more quickly. “However, when one approaches them for help, they almost always say that until their senior officers give them instructions, they can’t move against the extortionist threat,” Farooqi said.

Farooqi, who is also the chief of his own community policing network, said that unless the business community makes a hue and cry, nobody comes forward to solve the problem.

He stressed that Rangers, in coordination with police, must take strict action against extortionists across the board no matter who they are affiliated with.

Meanwhile, Pakistan Rangers spokesperson Major Rizvi said the Rangers helpline established to tackle the threat from extortionists remains functional. “In fact, the response to it has been very good,” he said. However, when asked about the figures on the number of extortionists held and threat cases solved, the spokesperson said he didn’t remember the figures off hand, but insisted there were ‘quite a few’.

Senior Rangers official Brigadier Waseem Ayub said that “just by making a lot of hue and cry [about the extortionist issue] will not solve the problem.” He claimed that the “situation on the ground was quite different from what is being portrayed.”

Sohail Abbas Shah, the additional chief secretary for the home department in Sindh, said the provincial government was doing all it could to deal with the complaints against extortionists. “The business community may have some complaints, but I think we have good liaison with the traders and with their cooperation we are dealing with the threats of extortionists,” he said.

According to Shah, a special anti-extortionist cell was established at the Karachi police’s Central Investigation Agency to deal specifically with this problem. “This cell has received around 15 applications from the traders who reported threats from extortionists,” he said, adding that since investigations were still in progress he could not give details about the cases.

He defended the Inspector General of Sindh Mushtaq Mahar role in controlling crime and said the senior police officer had been meeting traders to sort out their issues.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 20^th, 2012.