'Extortionists' open fire on Karachi school
Four people on two motorcycles started firing at the school.
There were four people on two motorcycles who started firing at the school. PHOTO: REUTERS/FILE
KARACHI:
Unknown gunmen opened fire on Prince School in the Orangi Gulshan-e-Bahar area of Karachi, Express News reported on Tuesday.
According to initial report, there were four people on two motorcycles who started firing at the school.
The school administration said the incident took place because they refused to pay money to extortionists who had been threatening the administration for the past few days.
No loss of life was reported.
2013 will be a record year of extortion demands:
Businesses in Karachi are facing a surge in extortion demands from criminal gangs, forcing many owners to delay new investment or to relocate their families to escape the sense of insecurity gripping the urban heart of country’s economy.
The worsening law and order situation in Karachi, which generates 25% of Pakistan’s economic activity, presents one of the many challenges new Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif must overcome to fulfill promises to set the country on a path to faster growth.
An expanding middle class is fueling consumer spending but extortion is hurting confidence among thousands of family-run firms that form the backbone of the economy.
According to the police, 2013 will be a record year of extortion demands.
“The extortion racket has blown out of all proportion with the previous year,” Chief of the Citizen Police Liaison Committee (CPLC), a body set up to help police by providing crime statistics and technical support, Ahmed Chinoy had said.
The growing demands reflect the shifting dynamics of a city of 18 million people where new challengers, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban, are locked in an increasingly violent, neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood battle for control.
Figures collected by Chinoy’s committee show there were more than 630 extortion complaints registered in Karachi from January to mid-June, compared to 589 in the whole of last year. Most cases were registered by people who have refused to pay.
Police say the actual number of incidents is many times higher since the vast majority of extortion demands go unreported and victims usually decide to pay. There is no way to know the sums involved, but police say payments run into tens of millions of dollars annually and that 2013 will be a record year.
Unknown gunmen opened fire on Prince School in the Orangi Gulshan-e-Bahar area of Karachi, Express News reported on Tuesday.
According to initial report, there were four people on two motorcycles who started firing at the school.
The school administration said the incident took place because they refused to pay money to extortionists who had been threatening the administration for the past few days.
No loss of life was reported.
2013 will be a record year of extortion demands:
Businesses in Karachi are facing a surge in extortion demands from criminal gangs, forcing many owners to delay new investment or to relocate their families to escape the sense of insecurity gripping the urban heart of country’s economy.
The worsening law and order situation in Karachi, which generates 25% of Pakistan’s economic activity, presents one of the many challenges new Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif must overcome to fulfill promises to set the country on a path to faster growth.
An expanding middle class is fueling consumer spending but extortion is hurting confidence among thousands of family-run firms that form the backbone of the economy.
According to the police, 2013 will be a record year of extortion demands.
“The extortion racket has blown out of all proportion with the previous year,” Chief of the Citizen Police Liaison Committee (CPLC), a body set up to help police by providing crime statistics and technical support, Ahmed Chinoy had said.
The growing demands reflect the shifting dynamics of a city of 18 million people where new challengers, including the Tehreek-e-Taliban, are locked in an increasingly violent, neighbourhood-by-neighbourhood battle for control.
Figures collected by Chinoy’s committee show there were more than 630 extortion complaints registered in Karachi from January to mid-June, compared to 589 in the whole of last year. Most cases were registered by people who have refused to pay.
Police say the actual number of incidents is many times higher since the vast majority of extortion demands go unreported and victims usually decide to pay. There is no way to know the sums involved, but police say payments run into tens of millions of dollars annually and that 2013 will be a record year.