Operation against kutcha area outlaws in the offing

Apex committee decides to crush criminals, especially in kutcha areas

KARACHI:

The Apex Committee in its 28th meeting assessed the recent uprising in the wave of terrorism in the country and evaluated overall intelligence reports presented by different agencies.

The meeting, held with Sindh Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah in the chair at the CM House, decided to crush every kind of threat, including terrorism, drug peddling, street crimes and dacoits in Katcha area through intelligence-based well-coordinated targeted operation.

The CM suggested that Sindh, Punjab, and Balochistan IGPs should sit together and chalk out a complete plan to launch an operation in the katcha area for which all the law enforcement agencies would support them. "The operation against the outlaws must be decisive and once for all," the categorically mentioned.

The CM mentioned that as per CPLC, 85,000 cases [of street crime] were reported during 2022. He asked the IG Police Ghulam Nabi Memon to brief the meeting on the issue.

The IG said that snatching and lifting of bikes and cars, mobile snatching at gunpoint and robberies constitute `street crime'.

He added that 85,000 cases of street crimes were reported in the year of 2022 which mean 7,000 cases a month and 229 cases a day.

"There are 108 police station in the city and if 229 or 230 daily case are divided, each police station reported 2.1 cases a day," he said, adding that bike snatchings constitute 50 per cent of the total street crime cases which means one street crime took place in the city every day.

Showing an interesting fact sheet about the release of repeated street criminals/habitual criminals, the IG told the meeting that 1,655 criminals who committed at least thrice street crime were arrested but they were bailed out within a period of one week to six months of their arrest.

At this, the CM asked Advisor on law Murtaza Wahab about the progress on the passing of the Sindh Habitual Offenders Monitoring Bill-2021. Wahab told the CM that the bill has been sent to the Standing Committee on Home for soliciting public opinion as per the rules.

It may be noted that the habitual/repeated criminals would be E-tagged once the law is passed. The CM directed the law department to expedite the process. The IGP mentioned that katcha areas are safe haven for criminals who hide in small Islands of the Indus which are the no-go areas for police. These criminals use these hideouts to indulge in kidnapping for ransom, both through honey trapping and road robberies, and extortion.

Local bodies poll security

The chief minister was also briefed about the police deployment in the upcoming local bodies elections scheduled to take place on January 15. It was disclosed that there would be 4,995 polling stations where 25,340 policemen would be deployed. A quick response force (QRF) has been assigned to provide security at 2,728 buildings.

 

Published in The Express Tribune, January 6^th, 2023.