‘Easy access to drugs, arms leads to crimes’
Handout photo shows weapons and ammunition also recovered from the terrorists, who were wanted for an attack on police last year resulting in the martyrdom of five constables.—Photo: ISPR
The city police chief has identified two major contributing factors to the rising street crimes in the metropolis: availability of drugs and weapons, which he claimed were "gifts" from Afghanistan.
"No other country or city in the world allows renting of weapons," AIG Khadim Hussain Rind said, adding that investigators have discovered that an accused in the murder case of Mufti Zia-ur-Rehman, who was fatally shot in Gulistan-e-Jauhar in September 2023, had committed the crime with a rented weapon.
AIG Rind said that police launched an operation against Afghan criminals on September 10 for specific reasons, citing incidents like the Mufti Zia-ur-Rehman murder case.
The government later formulated a policy against Afghan criminals, pausing the operation on October 15 and granting respite until November 1.
Read: Drugs, weapons seized from constable’s house
The Karachi police chief reported that 2,400 Afghan criminals were arrested last year, with 1,274 arrests occurring in just five weeks from September 10 to October 15. Drug addicts also contributed adversely to the city's challenges, with many incidents of looting and killings involving Afghan criminals.
AIG Rind disclosed that during the grand operation against illegal aliens that began on November 1, around 40,000 Afghans left the country. Of these, around 35,000 went to Afghanistan through the Chaman border, and 5,000 to 6,000 returned via Turkham. "After the departure of these illegal immigrants and Afghan criminals, incidents of crime decreased," AIG Rind claimed. "Since September, not a single house robbery has occurred in which perpetrators looted and subjected girls and women to sexual violence."
The city police chief noted a decline in incidents involving a gang that used to rob houses and subject women to sexual violence. He said that there were no reported cases of resistance leading to shootings, emphasising that no police officers have been martyred since September last year.
Published in The Express Tribune, January 28th, 2024.