Out of luck: Moving to Rawalpindi to escape rising crime in Karachi, not a great idea

Family robbed four days after shifting to garrison city.

RAWALPINDI:

The growing menace of extortion, target killing and kidnapping for ransom in Karachi has forced many families to shift to other cities of the country. For a family which moved to Rawalpindi due to the deteriorating law and order situation in Karachi, a peaceful and secure life in the garrison city proved equally elusive.

The feeling of insecurity added to my wife and parents’ stress forcing me to shift to Rawalpindi, said Hassan Ali*. “My wife always wanted to shift to Punjab as its cities are relatively peaceful compared to cities in other provinces of the country.”

“My family would worry endlessly and call me every few hours after I’d leave for work,” said Ali a resident of Malir. He worked as a sales manager and was happy with the job but the general lawlessness exacerbating with each passing day compounded the family’s fears.

Ali rented a house in Gulrez and shifted to the city on December 1, 2013, but as luck would have it, four days after they moved into the new house, robbers broke in when they were out shopping. “The robbers barged into the house and made off with 28 tola jewellery and Rs70,000 cash,” he said. When we returned home we found the briefcase containing the cash and jewellery missing. “The incident caught us by surprise. For us, it was a case of out of the frying pan, into the fire,” he said. The robbers did not bother to search other rooms after finding the briefcase, he added.

As Ali was not familiar with the city, it took him two hours to find the Airport police station to register a case. “It took me hours to find the police station. When I reached the place, I was told to go to Gulrez Chowki to register an FIR, which took me another hour to find,” he said.

However, three months have passed and the police have still not been able to recover the jewellery and cash. “We are trying to nab the robbers but as they are unknown it is very difficult to find them,” said the moharrar at the chowki, Naseemuz Zaman. “The family didn’t nominate anyone due to which the police are finding it difficult to trace the robbers, but we’re hopeful we’ll be able to arrest them,” he added.

*Name changed to protect identity

Published in The Express Tribune, February 21^st, 2014.