Tenant verification widely ignored in metropolis

As per law people are required to get police verification before renting property

KARACHI:

The residents and the police of the country's sprawling metropolis remain oblivious of implementing the know-your-tenant law making the city vulnerable to the movement of suspected terrorists.

The Sindh Information of Temporary Residents Act, 2015, requires that people should inform the local police station when taking in new tenants, officials told Express.

The verification of tenant for shop, house, apartment or room is mandatory under the Act, so as to keep check on the movement of terrorists. The same law was applied to the appointment of domestic workers, janitors, gardeners, and drivers.

However, despite the directives of the home ministry, police and the citizens alike committing criminal negligence in implementation of the Act which could cause great distress to hundreds of innocent citizens.

For a few months, this notification was implemented in most areas in which the police allegedly earned Rs2,000 per verification. The precinct officials charged Rs1,000 each from the landlord and the tenant for verification. This notification has since been trashed like any other and now there are only a few landlords who strictly follow this law whereas most estate agents, landlords, tenants, and even the police have stopped paying attention to this law.

The Sindh government has also introduced an application for online verification for tenants and household help. Now that the incidents of terrorism in the country are on the rise again, law enforcement agencies and citizens should become active before any tragedy occurs.

As per police officials, millions of unidentified people have come and settled in most parts of Karachi in the last four years, but citizens are so preoccupied with economic problems that no one pays attention to whether there is a new tenant or landlord in their neighborhood and which city of Pakistan they belong to.

The police, already low on numbers and overloaded with security duties, are also not paying attention to these problems. There are hundreds of aliens who have made foothold in various markets by allegedly bribing the police.

Officials said that no one will raise an eyebrow if a stranger from any part of the country, or the neighbouring countries was driving an auto-rickshaw, or any other loading vehicle in the markets or any other places, no one is going to ask you where you came from, who you are and what's your source of income.

If this system and other such illegal activities are not immediately controlled or addressed, it will be difficult to stop the increasing incidents of street crime and robbery.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 8^th, 2022.