Post-op estimates: Police rack up Rs16m bill but barely make a dent in Lyari
It cost about 16 million rupees over eight days but according to some observers, its results flirted with 0.
As the police recoup and the gangsters restock, initial estimates of the Lyari operation are being cobbled together.
In the eight-day operation, a total 26 people were killed and 150 people were injured. The police lost Civil Lines SHO Fawad Khan and four other policemen and 28 others were injured. Some 150 men were injured.
Up to 1,400 men fought from several law-enforcement units. They used six of the police’s armoured personnel carriers (APCs) and five APC tanks with scores of mobile units. All of the APCs were damaged by rockets and grenades and three were badly affected.
One of them was carrying SHO Fawad Khan who was killed. This one is still standing in Lyari and the police have yet to retrieve it from the gangsters’ hold. An APC costs at least Rs10 million.
Police claimed that they have killed 11 alleged gangsters, including Tariq aka Siyapa, Naeem aka Lahoti and Mullah Sohail, but have yet to prove this. About two dozen suspects have been arrested, but this includes men who were rounded up before the operation.
The police claim to have seized two launchers, six rockets, 44 grenades, 34 Kalashnikovs, three light machine guns (LMGs), three G-3s, eight repeater guns, nine rifles, 16 TT pistols, 10 9mm pistols and over 600 pieces of ammunition.
The police mostly used G-3 rifles and SMGs and fired about 75,000 bullets in eight days at three points in Lyari. Each SMG bullet costs Rs45 and a G-3 bullet costs Rs110.
While the food cost was about Rs1.6m for eight days because biryani, qorma, tandoori roti, juice, tea, water were sent for 1,000 or more men.
According to one estimate, the daily expenses came to Rs2 million. But in addition to this, there is the cost of the damage to vehicles and infrastructure. The Karachi Electric Supply Company (KESC) says that 20 pole-mounted transformers (PMTs) in Lyari were completely damaged. “The loss runs in to millions of rupees. Each PMT costs between Rs500,000 and Rs1.5 million, depending on the size. The wires, feeders and whole infrastructure is affected,” said spokesman Aminur Rahman. KESC has 180,000 customers in Lyari. Out of these at least 18,000 had to face prolonged power outages when criminals fired at PMTs and damaged them. KESC has replaced six of the damaged PMTs and another six will be replaced by Saturday night.
According to an estimate, the gangsters lobbed over 500 grenades, including Awans, and fired over 100 rockets, including RPG-7s and mini rockets. Most of the grenades and rockets misfired but a few damaged the body and infrastructure of police mobiles, APCs, APC tanks, electricity PMTs and police stations. The Kalri, Baghdadi, Kalakot, Chakiwara, Napier and Pak Colony police stations will need repairs.
Some uninvolved people and policemen, including SHO Fawad Khan, PC Malik Tasawar, died in the rocket and grenade attacks and about one-fifth of over 150 persons were injured from them.
South Zone SSP Nasir Aftab who, in collaboration with AEC chief SSP Chaudhry Aslam Khan, was leading the operation, told The Express Tribune that it would continue with more manpower and a better strategy.
“Definitely, not just the police but the gangsters also took a hit but they are hiding it,” he said. “They think they’ll fire two shots and the police will scamper off? But now they will see that we aren’t the types to run off.” He acknowledged that the police could not kill or arrest all the gangsters in one go, but the force had not backed down either.
“We are in the middle of reinforcements and when we go in again they will not be able to retaliate as they did because they’ve used up a lot of their ammunition.”
According to SSP Aftab’s estimates, the operation will cost millions of rupees because the police fired a minimum of 50,000 bullets.
Rangers have started patrolling Lyari and snap checking at entry and exit points. Rangers Sacchal Wing Commander Brig. Waseem Ayub told The Express Tribune that this was just routine. To a query, he said that the Rangers would launch an operation independently or with the police but all of this depended on the government.
Published in The Express Tribune, May 6th, 2012.
COMMENTS (9)
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why foriegn behave with Baloch peoples shame on pakistan systematic discrimination MQM try to capture a seat of this area by building homes for muhajirs and operation is also behalf of MQM ...
These same gangsters were darling of ppp at one time and now that they are politically against ppp they became most wanted overnights. This operation was a massacre. Like the ones Israel does in Gaza. APC tanks destroyed every common vehicle that they saw in Lyari and homes and shiops of many common poor people were destroyed in the name of gangsters. On occasions police shot indiscriminately at people killing innocent civilians. People like Abdul sattar edhi were not allowed to carry out humanitarian work in Lyari. PPP is punishing people of lyari for voting for ppp in last election.
According to CM Sind this was not an operation but a routine action but I.G.Police Sind calls it an operation against the wanted men.First decide!!! Who benefitted from all this farce??? not PPP or the Sind Govt. but Uzair Baloch and Baba ladla. They garnered more support!
75,000 bullets??? and optimistically claim to have killed just 11 gangsters. What were they shooting at with all the bullets?
Because of no full throttle action and negative portrayal by media.
Sure and if the police hadn't went in, the media would say that the police did nothing. It seems that you are damned if you do and you are damned if you don't because the Pakistani mind set is never satisfied but will always complain.
Your breakdown of expenditure would have been more meaningful if you had also stated a rough estimate of cost to Karachi's citizens in terms of extortion, murders, land-grabbing, drug smuggling, gun-running, and operation of gambling dens in Lyari in the last few years by the bandits there. Then, we, the readers, could have pictured the true cost of this operation. Karachi's crime, at least from Press reports, has decreased significantly in the last ten days. It can be safely assumed that the Karachi's citizens and business community has saved billions of rupees because of this operation.
So what? Since when have we started to count pennies when it comes to security needs of the Pakistani state? I thought it was unpatriotic to question monies spent on security operations? So at a time when policeman are being asked to launch an operation (whether for the right or wrong reasons is debatable), saying that too much is being spent on their food and weaponry is hardly going to help motivate a poorly equipped, trained and staffed organization. Now if this article had listed out the monies spent on maintaining the Army in some agency in FATA, and how much one jawan takes up as daily ration, that would spark outrage that someone dared to put a monetary figure. In a land of double standards, the police are just unfortunate that their uniforms are not of the right colour.