Given the double-digit inflation, street crime has seen an upsurge in the entire country and the easiest target for thieves is cell phones — which they take away at gunpoint and then smuggle into neighbouring Afghanistan via Peshawar.
The law enforcement agencies in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s (K-P) capital have gone as far as to say that the city has become a hub for smuggling illegal phones to Afghanistan through the Torkham border in trucks carrying trade goods and raw materials. As per sources in the investigation department of Peshawar Police, more than 50 mobile phones are snatched or stolen daily; which puts the total number of cell phone theft cases per month, in all 33 police station jurisdictions of the city, at 1,500. A staggering 80% of these phones are sent to Afghanistan, while the remainder are sold locally, as per the city’s police. However, it is not just phones stolen from Peshawar that are making their way across the border.
“127 valuable android phones were recovered from a seven member gang recently. These phones belonged to people from Multan, Karachi, and different parts of Punjab. The arrested gang member, an Afghan dealer, Jan Mohammad, confessed that phones from across the country were brought into Peshawar and their IMEI numbers were then changed,” informed SP Peshawar Police, Abdul Salam Khalid, in a press conference.
The SP further informed that the gang tries to send expensive phones to Afghanistan, whereas the rest are sold in Peshawar. Naeem Khan, a shopkeeper involved in the cell phone business for the last 13 years in Peshawar’s Qisa Khawani Bazaar, concurred with this information. “Every shopkeeper wants to buy stolen mobile phones for cheap and then sell them at high prices. Most of these phones are available at Kabadi Bazar, Karkhano, and Hashtnagri mobile market,” said Khan, “however, if there is an FIR registered against the phone, the shopkeeper who buys it goes through a lot of trouble.” Musa, who sells cell phones in Firdous Bazaar, agreeing with Khan, said that now they have to be extra cautious when buying used cell phones.
“We take a copy of the ID card and enter the seller’s complete information in our records, so that the police cannot take action against us under the suspicion of purchasing stolen phones,” explained Musa. While local cell phone dealers might have become cautious, the smuggling into Afghanistan has gone on unabated. An officer in the Peshawar Police, told the Express Tribune on the condition of anonymity, that trucks carrying trade goods are used by the Afghan gangs to transport the phones.
“There are more than 20 such gangs operating in the city right now and they make millions every month from the cell phone smuggling business. Since there are no strict regulations in Afghanistan, like the PTA tax that we have to pay on phones brought from other countries, it is a great market for stolen phones,” the official said. SSP Operations, Peshawar, Kashif Abbasi, when asked about this upsurge in cell phone theft and Peshawar being a hub for smuggling, replied that there had been a significant reduction in incidents of phone theft. “We have recovered 500 phones in the past two months.
However, it cannot be said that such incidents are over. Therefore, we have established a special cell to combat phone theft, which is working on profiling snatchers and different gangs,” Abbasi told The Express Tribune.
Published in The Express Tribune, November 21st, 2022.
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