Tackling street crime

As many as 92,889 street robberies were reported to the police between January 2015 and October 2019

Fortunate is a Karachiite who has not had an encounter with a street criminal. There are rather those who have fallen prey to the roaming robbers more than once. Some have even clinched a hat-trick of the unpleasant experience. As many as 18,000 citizens every year are relieved of valuables including cellphones, motorcycles and cars, besides hard cash, according to media reports quoting officials. And this means that nearly 50 citizens are robbed at gunpoint every day in the city that has at its disposal the services of more than hundred police stations.

While street crimes have been a largely unchecked phenomenon in Karachi for a decade and half, there had been a cut in the overall crime rate in the city for a few years in the wake of the Rangers-led operation launched in 2013, and thus the cases of street crimes also fell. Of late though, the menace of street crimes has witnessed an upsurge. See the figures quoted in the media: 92,889 street robberies were reported to the police between January 2015 and October 2019 in which 82,417 people were deprived of their cellphones, 11,305 of motorcycles and 1,167 of cars.

That some 220 people also lost their lives while resisting these robberies speaks of the callousness of those considered as petty thieves, and calls for devising a comprehensive strategy to deal with what has become a challenge as big as anything. The Sindh CM has approved a Rs102 million plan to bolster Madadgar 15 to better take on the street criminals. However, side by side there is a need to carry out a survey to determine which segments of society are involved in the street crime, what provokes them into it, and how they could be helped out of it. A survey carried out after the 2011 riots in England revealed that most of those involved in the loot and arson were the dwellers of shanties unable to speak English, and were thus marginalised. Time to learn from the British experience.

Published in The Express Tribune, November 27^th, 2019.

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