Getting ambitious: After exhausting traders, extortionists eye fresh targets
Police believe various gangs are interconnected and they all meet in prisons.
Even though fire fighters in the province are not earning as much money, the new breed of extoritionists in the city have targeted them. The fire station in Baldia received a ‘bhatta chit’ for Rs200,000. PHOTO: FILE
KARACHI:
When the Baldia fire station workers received a phone call to pay Rs200,000 as extortion, they did not take it seriously.
“We thought it was a prank call,” said a terrified fire engineer, Ehtisham. “Why would anyone ask us, low-income rescuers, to give that much extortion money?”
A few days later, four armed men ransacked the station forcing the workers to run for their lives. That was when these burly firefighters knew the extortionists mean business.
“Putting out the inferno at the Baldia factory did not scare me much as the attack,” admitted the firefighter. “I am frightened that they would come again and kill us all,” continued the worker in a shaky voice, careful not to share too much information. “I can’t comment much on this. It has all been settled now,” he added, hurriedly.
The city’s extortionist mafia, as it appears, has exhausted its traditional options of traders and shopkeepers and is now hunting new targets. Their badly written slips, bullying phone calls, grenade attacks and bullet-laden envelops are now reaching out to men from other walks of life.
Even religious scholars have not been spared. Mufti Abdullah, the head of Darul Ifta - a religious body that issues fatwas - had to wind up his set-up and flee Karachi when he was asked to pay Rs20 million as extortion from a man, named Abu Asif, who claimed to be from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. “How could a cleric earning Rs20,000 a month pay off Rs20 million?” wondered Abdullah’s colleague Mufti Naeem, the head of Darul Uloom in Karachi. “These days, no one is safe from extortionists.”
More than 25 religious scholars in the past months have received phone calls for extortion, while some, such as Abdullah, have even received explosives at their homes when they refused to pay up. “Mufti Abdullah was a respected scholar and held an important position,” said Naeem, unhappy that the worried man had to relocate after severe threats.
For those innocent victims who believed changing professions will end the menace were also in for an unpleasant surprise. A wedding hall owner in Gulberg told The Express Tribune that he closed his 15-year-old family business of decoration services after he was forced to pay extortion every month. “But I was wrong when I thought that the ‘bhatta’ mafia was only restricted to shopkeepers,” he said, pointing out how he is being forced to pay hundreds of thousands of rupees as extortion by the people due to whom he closed his shop, and even some new ones.
In the last six months, the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee has received 762 extortion cases, which significantly surpasses last year’s figure of 590 complaints. Some have even approached financial institutions, such as banks in sensitive areas. Members of various political, religious and nationalist parties and banned outfits are involved in collecting extortion, which adds up to Rs300 million every day.
Pioneers
The ‘bhatta’ culture was introduced by a prominent political party in the city when it collected donations to run party affairs. The same idea was, then, adopted by other parties as well. “Injustice, poverty and unemployment are the major reasons behind collection of extortion money,” the officer tried to reason. “This business does not need education or training, it just needs bombs, weapons, and a phone call to make the demand.”
Meanwhile, District East police chief Captain (retd) Tahir Naveed said the extortionists belong to political, religious or banned parties but they are linked to one another. “The best places where they meet and become friends are the prisons,” he said. “Here they learn from each other how to run the extortion business and to distribute their areas but if they try to interfere in one another’s jurisdiction, then clashes take place.”
Published in The Express Tribune, September 13th, 2013.
When the Baldia fire station workers received a phone call to pay Rs200,000 as extortion, they did not take it seriously.
“We thought it was a prank call,” said a terrified fire engineer, Ehtisham. “Why would anyone ask us, low-income rescuers, to give that much extortion money?”
A few days later, four armed men ransacked the station forcing the workers to run for their lives. That was when these burly firefighters knew the extortionists mean business.
“Putting out the inferno at the Baldia factory did not scare me much as the attack,” admitted the firefighter. “I am frightened that they would come again and kill us all,” continued the worker in a shaky voice, careful not to share too much information. “I can’t comment much on this. It has all been settled now,” he added, hurriedly.
The city’s extortionist mafia, as it appears, has exhausted its traditional options of traders and shopkeepers and is now hunting new targets. Their badly written slips, bullying phone calls, grenade attacks and bullet-laden envelops are now reaching out to men from other walks of life.
Even religious scholars have not been spared. Mufti Abdullah, the head of Darul Ifta - a religious body that issues fatwas - had to wind up his set-up and flee Karachi when he was asked to pay Rs20 million as extortion from a man, named Abu Asif, who claimed to be from the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan. “How could a cleric earning Rs20,000 a month pay off Rs20 million?” wondered Abdullah’s colleague Mufti Naeem, the head of Darul Uloom in Karachi. “These days, no one is safe from extortionists.”
More than 25 religious scholars in the past months have received phone calls for extortion, while some, such as Abdullah, have even received explosives at their homes when they refused to pay up. “Mufti Abdullah was a respected scholar and held an important position,” said Naeem, unhappy that the worried man had to relocate after severe threats.
For those innocent victims who believed changing professions will end the menace were also in for an unpleasant surprise. A wedding hall owner in Gulberg told The Express Tribune that he closed his 15-year-old family business of decoration services after he was forced to pay extortion every month. “But I was wrong when I thought that the ‘bhatta’ mafia was only restricted to shopkeepers,” he said, pointing out how he is being forced to pay hundreds of thousands of rupees as extortion by the people due to whom he closed his shop, and even some new ones.
In the last six months, the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee has received 762 extortion cases, which significantly surpasses last year’s figure of 590 complaints. Some have even approached financial institutions, such as banks in sensitive areas. Members of various political, religious and nationalist parties and banned outfits are involved in collecting extortion, which adds up to Rs300 million every day.
Pioneers
The ‘bhatta’ culture was introduced by a prominent political party in the city when it collected donations to run party affairs. The same idea was, then, adopted by other parties as well. “Injustice, poverty and unemployment are the major reasons behind collection of extortion money,” the officer tried to reason. “This business does not need education or training, it just needs bombs, weapons, and a phone call to make the demand.”
Meanwhile, District East police chief Captain (retd) Tahir Naveed said the extortionists belong to political, religious or banned parties but they are linked to one another. “The best places where they meet and become friends are the prisons,” he said. “Here they learn from each other how to run the extortion business and to distribute their areas but if they try to interfere in one another’s jurisdiction, then clashes take place.”
Published in The Express Tribune, September 13th, 2013.