Oil on troubled transporters: Police to bolster security from ICI Bridge to Hawkes Bay truck stand

Transporters plagued by mafias, militants and ethnic violence put their foot down.

KARACHI:

When a transporter was killed on Sunday night, the Karachi Goods Carriers Association reacted with angry promises of keeping their trucks off the roads indefinitely. However, they have now retracted those threats after the police assured the association that it would meet their demands for increased patrols on the route connecting ICI Bridge to the Hawkes Bay truck stand.

On Monday, the association’s Noor Khan Niazi claimed that transporter Chaudhry Ghulam Ali was killed in an attempted robbery and not because of a personnel enmity, as previously reported. “Every day our drivers suffer from such incidents but no one notices,” he said. “It is only when someone dies in a tragic incident that somebody cares to listen to us.” He felt that the authorities could have done something to prevent this.

The police spent the entire day holed up in a meeting with the association’s representatives. The outcome was that they decided to increase police manpower in the area.

“A permanent check post manned by a sub-inspector of their choice, Ali Haider, has also been assigned,” said SP Shah Jehan. The police also accepted the three-day deadline given by the association to arrest the murderers.

Had the association gone through with its threats and pulled all their trucks off the roads, both commercial goods coming in to Karachi as well as supplies for the Nato-led troops in Afghanistan would be suspended.

Compensation

Niazi complained that despite the fact that dozens of their drivers have been killed, they are never compensated. “At least 30 of our drivers have been killed and 75 trucks have been looted this year,” he said. The figure includes victims who delivered goods to Afghanistan as well. The men who die while delivering goods within the country are usually killed by organised criminal networks that loot trucks en route to their delivery stops. “It’s when they resist the robbery bid that they are killed,” explains SP Shah Jehan.

According to Niazi, 15 of the 30 men killed were delivering containers loaded with goods or oil tankers destined for Nato forces in Afghanistan. Last month, around 25 Afghanistan-bound trucks were burnt in Quetta, he added. Such trucks are usually targeted by terrorist networks.

The truck insurance policies do not help either - the money never trickles down to the victims.

“The National Logistics Cell is the main contractor that supplies goods to Nato forces in Afghanistan, which in turn subcontracts us to deliver the goods,” Niazi said. “But while the insurer pays the money for each damaged truck and life lost, it doesn’t get passed on to the people below.”

Karachi Transport Association’s Irshad Bukhari explained that his drivers face even more threats. While drivers transporting goods are usually killed by militants or organised mafias, his mini-bus and coach drivers are almost always the victims of ethnic and political killings. “Even in our case, compensation for our drivers has not been made.”

Since the start of this year, around 40 such drivers have been killed out of which only 10 drivers have been paid Rs300,000 in compensation, said Bukhari. Meanwhile, another 120 drivers who were injured in violence remain uncompensated.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 11^th, 2011.