Protected by unions: Police find dealers in stolen gold hard to stop

Anjuman Tajiran president says police also make their cut from gold heists.

LAHORE:

Police officials say they have been unable to clamp down on gold robberies in the city because unions of jewellers and goldsmiths protect their members who deal in stolen gold, making it easy for robbers to quickly profit from the crime.

At least 16 jewellers in the city have been robbed of millions of rupees worth of gold this year, but the police have been unable to solve any cases.

The police also say that the claims made by jewellers of the amount of gold they were robbed of are often exaggerated. The Crimes Investigation Agency wrote to the Federal Board of Revenue in May to help the police examine the claims by looking at the jewellers’ tax returns. Officials from the two departments are to meet this week to discuss this further.

Capital City Police Officer Aslam Tareen met with representatives of the Jewellers’ Association on May 30 to discuss security measures for jewellers.

Sources in the police said that the CIA had arrested some members of two gangs behind robberies at a jeweller’s in Chuhng and one in Factory Area.

CIA Superintendent of Police Captain (retired) Malik Liaqat said that there were gold jewellers in and around Lahore who bought stolen gold. He said that they had formed unions which, when the police were about to conduct a raid or arrest, started protests, forced strikes and “used every measure possible” to deter the police. They would apply political pressure, by complaining to senior police officials about them.

He said that in some instances inquiries had been launched against police officers following such incidents, though the policemen had been found innocent.

Citing an example, he said that after one recent heist in Lahore, the robbers had taken the 8,720 grams of stolen gold to Sargodha and sold it to five jewellers there.

The police had later arrested the robbers, who had revealed the names of the dealers they had sold the gold to. But when the police went to the market to make arrests, the traders’ union called a strike, burnt tyres, and applied to senior officials against the police who wanted to arrest the dealers. He said that the union succeeded and the police were unable to arrest the dealers. He said that Abdul Jabbar, a member of the market union, had confessed to spending Rs120,000 on arranging strikes so the police wouldn’t be able to arrest the five jewellers.

He said that the CIA had compiled records for the past 10 years of gold and jewellery robbers who were out of jail. He said that they had shown their pictures to the jewellers who had been robbed and some had identified them as the robbers. He said he was still hopeful that the cases would be solved.

Sheikh Arshad Iqbal, a gold dealer and president of the Punjab Anjuman-i-Tajiran, said that the police and jewellers were equally responsible for the problem. He said many jewellers were vulnerable because they did not adopt adequate security measures.

He said there were some gold jewellers in Rang Mehal and other parts of the city who were buying stolen gold. “More or less every jeweller knows who they are.

They operate freely. No one dare do anything to stop them because they have strong political and police connections. The police get their cut from this business,” he said.

25 May

Four robbers barge into a jewellery shop in Suha Bazaar in broad daylight and steal two kilograms of gold, worth around Rs10 million.

23 May

Two armed robbers on a motorbike steal three kilos of gold, worth around Rs15 million, near Azadi Chowk from a jeweller named Zafar Iqbal who was on his way to Mirpur in Azad Kashmir.

10 May

Cash and gold jewellery worth Rs60 million stolen from a shop in Allama Iqbal Town’s Karim Block market.

23 April

Gold jewellery weighing 1.5 kg and worth about Rs5 million stolen from Abbas Jewellers owned by Muhammad Waseem in Main Bazaar, Township. On the same day, five robbers stole gold jewellery worth Rs900,000 from Memoona Jewellery Ship in Ganj Bazaar, Mughalpura.

14 March

Four robbers take Rs300,000 in cash and 33 tolas of gold jewellery from three shops   Sarfraz Jewellers, Azam Jewellers and Kashif Jewellers   in Qainchi Amar Sadhu.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 5^th, 2012.