‘Capital much safer than Washington DC’

SSP Kiani says organised car theft eliminated; only one kidnapping for ransom case reported so far this year

ISLAMABAD: A senior cop of the Islamabad Police on Saturday claimed that crime rate in the federal capital was far lower when compared to some other capitals around the world, particularly when compared to a place such as Washington DC in the United States of America.

SSP-Operations Sajid Kiani, who is also the operational head of the police in the capital, said that despite the fact that the force has meagre resources and strength far fewer than approved, they had managed to keep the city relatively secure.

Comparing the crime rate of Islamabad with that of Washington DC, SSP Kiani said the situation in the federal capital was much better.



“Washington DC, the capital of the world’s superpower, is a far smaller city as compared to Islamabad with a population of just 672,000 against over 2 million for Islamabad,” he said at a news briefing at the police office on Saturday.

“They [Washington DC] have a police strength of 4,200 while we [Islamabad Police] only have 3,200 in the operations division,” he said, adding, “[Despite all this] 2,400 vehicles were stolen in DC in 2016 while around 250 [were stolen] in Islamabad.”

“Entire Washington DC has security cameras and their police force is also certainly more efficient and better than ours, [but despite this] they registered over 10,000 incidents of theft from vehicles in 2016 while we had only around 10-20,” the SSP said as he urged the media to give the police credit where it was due.

Good performance

Kiani had called the press to showcase police performance and the stolen vehicles and goods which they had recovered. A large cache of unlicenced weapons confiscated during city-wide search operations under Operation Raddul-Fassad during the first four months of 2017 were also displayed.



In this regard, he said that several car lifting gangs had been busted in the capital as he went on to claim that organised car theft in the capital had been eliminated, adding that most of these gangs operated from Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (K-P) and Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK).

As an example, Kiani pointed to the recent case where police had busted a gang of car thieves hailing from the AJK and which involved a number of AJK police officials.

Moreover, a number of people who received stolen cars from K-P had also been caught. The police displayed 18 stolen vehicles and 67 recovered stolen motorbikes during the briefing. media.

Moreover, Kiani said that Islamabad Police had arrested 1,878 suspects so far this year and recovered valuables worth Rs135.4 million including stolen cars, motorbikes, gold ornaments and foreign currency.



He said that 188 criminals were arrested in 99 dacoity cases and valuables around Rs7 million were recovered from them. A total of 233 people were held for their suspected involvement in burglaries and thefts while looted items worth Rs40 million were recovered from them.

Stolen cars worth Rs80.6 million were recovered from 77 suspects in 133 cases while 23 motorbike thieves were held from whom 31 motorbikes were recovered.

Talking about the crackdown on illegal weapons, SSP Kiani said they had recovered 40 Kalashnikovs, 28 carbines, 190 pistols, 1,782 bullets and seven daggers were recovered from 261 suspects.  Further, 92 search operations had been conducted in the capital.

Further, the SSP said that they had caught 281 drug pushers and bootleggers while 79.67 kilogrammes of hashish, 12.32 kilogrammes of heroin, 380 grammes of opium and 3,184 wine bottles were recovered from them.

Islamabad Police, he said, had traced 10 killers in eight murder cases while cases had been registered against 77 people under the Foreigners Act.

Talking about the campaign against alms-seekers in the capital he said that 813 beggars were held, 488 were sent to the Edhi Home and 325 were charge-sheeted by the courts.



In a bid to curb the drug supply in educational institutions, he said 20 dealers were held and over 12 kilogrammes of hashish, 380 grammes of opium, 650 grammes of heroin along with tranquillizer pills were recovered from them.

Additionally, 3,442 proclaimed offenders were been arrested since April 2016 while 71 gambles and 37 people involved in aerial firing were held.

Moreover, earlier this year two people were held for carrying 22 kilogrammes of explosive material while eight extortionists were also held.

Separately, four people carrying fake currency were held while 48 people were arrested for being involved in ‘immoral activities’.

‘Success stories’

Kiani said only one kidnapping for ransom incident took place in the capital this year which the police successfully traced and the seven kidnappers were arrested.

Moreover, he pointed out how the murder of a policeman from Chakwal in Jhangi Syedan as well as looting a Chinese national in Sector I-10 area a few days ago had been resolved within days.

At the end, Kiani handed over recovered valuables to their owners.

Canadian senator’s handbag recovered

One particular high-profile street crime case during recent weeks was that of Canadian Senator Salma Ataullahjan who had been deprived of her handbag by two motorbike riders in Super Market on April 25.

Police, though, were able to track down and arrest the suspects within 48 hours with the help of security camera. On Tuesday, the senator’s nephew Shamoun Khan Durrani was handed over the $4200 and other documents which were present in the senator’s bag.

Talking to The Express Tribune, Durrani said he was quite impressed by police’s performance after the senator’s mugging.

Published in The Express Tribune, May 7^th, 2017.