Late Friday night, a dispute over the arrangement of pushcarts resulted in a series of shootouts. First in Empress Market, a man was shot dead and two more were injured. One of the wounded men was later gunned down inside the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre’s emergency ward. Three more men have since succumbed to their injuries. Around the Empress Market in downtown Saddar, 11,000 pushcart vendors ply their trade every day. Everything, from branded watches to used clothes, is sold here. But outside the public view is another throbbing industry. Daily, the vendors pay “protection money” to a loosely knit arrangement of gangsters, extortionists and policemen. There’s a price for setting a stall at a place - any place.
These men behind the scenes are powerful. They ensure their clients are not harassed by the government or police or anyone else. Hundreds of anti-encroachment drives led by the city administration have met failure. The roadside vendors have become a permanent feature in Saddar.
Vendors say four major political groups have their say in Saddar. They pay Rs100 every day to the men in charge of their respective areas. “When one can get a place in Rs100, we are not mad to pay millions to buy a shop,” a pushcart vendor, Rozi Khan, told The Express Tribune.
“No one can run a business here without paying any group,” said another vendor Gul Nawaz. “The areas are divided, everybody works within his limits.”
Whenever someone steps over, things go bad. This is what happened on Friday also when two groups run by Bari Kakar and Abdur Rehman came face to face at Saddar’s Jahangir Hotel.
Rehman, who was shot dead at Jinnah hospital, was a security guard at Bilawal House for the past eight years. Ejaz Durrani, the Bilawal House spokesperson, also confirmed this but was unaware of the reason behind his murder. But DSP Zameer Abbasi blames the whole mess on encroachments. Illegal occupation of government lands, traffic jams, terrorism threats, armed clashes and land grabbing are all because of encroachments, he declared.
“Five people died today but the future is much more dangerous,” Abbasi added. Besides Rehman,
Ramzan Kakar, Asif Kakar and two passersby, Imdad Ali and Habib, were shot dead. Cases from both sides have been registered and the prime suspect, Saddam Kakar, who murdered Rehman, has been arrested.
The Jinnah hospital has also gone to the police to register a case against the shooting inside hospital premises. “This is a government institute, so we have asked police on our behalf to register the FIR,” Dr Seemin Jamali, the in-charge of the hospital’s emergency department, told The Express Tribune. “All details, including the CCTV footage, have been given to the police.”
Published in The Express Tribune, December 24th, 2012.
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why never rangers had carried out target operating in this sadar area..??
Where is the city administration, police, other LEAs to look into this encroachment business where people are making millions with the power of guns. Who will responsible for these? I think no one and as a result Karachi is going to be the city for making money from all the quarters, every one is taking its share from Karachi i.e. police, city administration, provincial administration, LEAs, and gangsters too, but giving nothing in return to this city.