Fear street : Crime throws citizens into a cold sweat

For Majid Bakhshish, a young labourer employed at a ritzy hotel in Peshawar, the long walk home from work had always been his time to self-reflect and ponder. However, on the eve of January 23, as Bakhshish strolled on his usual path, he had not the slightest inkling of the horrors that awaited him just around the corner of the street leading to the provincial assembly.

“I was waiting just adjacent to Qila Bala Hissar, when two men on a motorcycle brushed close to me, put a gun to my head, and robbed me of all my valuables, including my mobile phone and rupees 4,000 in cash,” recalled the mortified hotel worker, who had dodged a bullet by the end of this encounter.

Harrowing as it may be, the trauma that Bakhshish experienced is one that resonates with most if not all residents of Peshawar, where street crime is seen to be escalating on a daily basis. The prime targets of such heists remain the city’s night workers who have to tread these fear-streets at wee hours when it’s easier for muggers to disappear into the darkness.

“I was returning home from a party when my vehicle was obstructed by armed men in a car close to Machine Chowk, a couple of weeks ago. They put the gun’s barrel to my face and took all the money I had on me, which was Rs200,000 in cash, and also robbed me of my mobile phones,” said Sana Baloch, a local transwoman, who owing to her community’s collective experience with gender violence was left distraught and reeling, but glad to have escaped physically unharmed. “I reported the incident at the Chamkani police station, which the crime scene fell in the jurisdiction of but no amount of reporting can undo the trauma I experienced that fateful night,” she added.

However, not everyone in this ordeal is as lucky as Bakhshish and Baloch to escape physically unscathed.

For Peshawar Police Sub-inspector Mehraban Shah, who was mugged close to Dilla Zak Road, resistance resulted in a bullet injury, that could have been fatal had he not sought medical aid in time. Once again, the mugging was reported to the police, this time at the Paharipura police station, but no incriminating developments have since been made on the case.

Tens of such incidents have also taken place in some of the most high-profile areas of the city, including the routine mugging of eight employees of a three-star hotel located close to FC Fort. While the law-enforcement agencies like the local police struggle to wipe out such incidents, their inadequacies have only emboldened the perpetrators of crime, leaving the city of Peshawar in a state of fear and turmoil.

Towards the end of last year, the local police department had formed the Ababil Force as a response to the rising (street) crime in Peshawar. It comprised of 200 riders, who were deployed to patrol the city’s streets and obstruct any instances of street crime. But as it happens to be, most of the Ababil Force personnel from other districts remain unfamiliar with Peshawar’s routes. So despite the force taking two shifts to patrol the streets, they have been of little aid to the distressed citizens.

Speaking in this regard, however, Peshawar SSP Operations Haroon Al-Rasheed claims that crime has not taken wings in Peshawar. “What’s actually happening on the other hand, is that we are registering first information reports (FIRs) for all kinds of crimes, including mobile snatching, theft, and robbery.

This was not the trend in the past, so it outwardly appears that there’s been a sudden surge in crime. That being said, we have been actively monitoring all crimes within our jurisdiction, including twelve gangs that have been arrested in the last month, in addition to various arrests for robbery, vehicle theft, mobile snatching and drug busts.

That being said, the crime rate in a city of 5 million is still much lower than in other cities in the country. With the new strategy, a mechanism is being set up for the re-arrest of the accused released from jails and we’ll soon make Peshawar a much safer city than it already is,” the SSP asserted while speaking to The Express Tribune.

Published in The Express Tribune, February 14^th, 2022.