Police told to weed out bad eggs

Murad calls for crackdown against drug mafia

KARACHI:

Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah directed the police department to weed out black sheep who are working for the drug mafia. The CM issued this statement while appreciating the performance of the police in terms of busting leading gangs of drug dealers and smugglers.

"I have reports that some policemen are working as facilitators for drug dealers and their presence is detrimental to the reputation of the police force. Therefore, they must be combed out and brought to book," Shah asserted.

The meeting on law and order, at the Chief Minister's House, was attended by Sindh acting chief secretary Qazi Shahid Pervez, IG Police Mushtaq Maher, CTD Additional IG Ghulam Nabi Maher, Karachi Additional IG Imran Minhas as well as DIGs Umer Shahid, Saqib Ismail, Akbar Riaz, Pir M Shah and Nauman Siddiqui.

The chief minister, apart from overall maintenance of law and order, issued special tasks for the police to conduct operations against drug dealers and curb crimes against women, children and minorities.

The IG Police, briefing the chief minister, said that over 10 days, between August 21 to 31, 2021, five cases were registered over crime against minorities, 22 for offence against women and nine over crime against children.

He said there were also 198 cases against trade in contrabands and 798 cases against the drug mafia. The chief minister was told that 879 arrests had been made in the cases against drug trafficking.

The recovery, the IG said, was huge in terms of quantity. He added 547.851 kilogrammes of charas, 19.3 kilogrammes of ice, 10.65 kilogrammes of heroin, 2.82 kilogrammes of opium 17.307 litres of liquor were seized.

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The chief minister was told that two major gangs of drug traffickers had been busted after their leaders and members were arrested. One of the gangsters, the police chief continued, was an Afghan and the other belonged to Balochistan.

The chief minister appreciated the police for its performance against the drug mafia. He said it would also eliminate street crime as he believed most street criminals were from the drug mafia.

Shah claimed to have intelligence reports which suggested that some policemen were working for the drug mafia and others had become their facilitators. Shah tasked the IG, additional IG Karachi and DIGs of the zones/ranges with starting high level and covert inquiries against such policemen.

The IG said that overall, 1,961 cases of street crime were reported in Karachi. A total of 236 were in the South zone, 1,070 in East and 6,55 in West. Shah directed the IG police to ask his DIGs to hold meetings with their SHOs and task them for curb crime against minorities, women and children.

He said overall law and order must be maintained in their respective areas.

KMC, KDA told to end court battle

Separately, at a meeting held two resolve disputes between the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation and the Karachi Development Authority, the CM asked the two civic bodies to withdraw cases filed by them in court over parking lots.

KMC Administrator Murtaza Wahab told the meeting that there was court battle between his corporation and KDA over the ownership of a parking lot at Bara-Dari which was out to a local hotel for Rs3.5 million annually.

Local Government Minister Nasir Shah said that the plot belonged to KMC and the defunct city district government had constructed an underground parking lot on it. He added that in those days, KDA was a part of the city government.

Now the matter has been in court for the last many years and rent is being deposited in the court. To this, the chief minister decided that the land on which the underground parking was developed belonged to KMC and should be taken over by the same.