Call and collect: Police identify over 60 groups involved in extortion

Claim most comprise local criminal gangs that have taken lead from militant outfits.

PESHAWAR:

Local police have identified at least 62 groups, 15 of them militant outfits, which are actively involved in extortion across the district, The Express Tribune learnt on Saturday.

“Local criminal groups have been active in the region for the past few years but the new trend is not kidnapping for ransom or burglary – it is the collection of extortion,” said a high-ranking police official, adding they have identified at least 62 groups in the district alone, with over a dozen of them being militant groups.

Most extortionists reportedly use Afghan SIMs to make phone calls demanding extortion, thereby making it difficult for authorities to trace them.

“The trend of taking extortion sums was the modus operandi of militant outfits to cover their expenses, but now every criminal group has been trying its luck in the field,” he revealed. “Well-off people – industrialists, merchants and jewellers – are their first target. Even doctors and teachers are not spared.”

The official explained that in the past, Afghan traders engaged in the Pak-Afghan transit trade were the target of extortionists, with payments going up to $2 million at times, adding that since the practice was not curbed at that time, criminals have diverted their attention to locals.

“All the rich and wealthy Afghan traders have left Peshawar for Kabul after extortionists surfaced two to three years ago. Since then, local traders have become their target,” he said.

In a report published in The Express Tribune earlier this year, a local trader had informed that the owner of a private university in Peshawar, along with his relative who owns a system of private schools, have moved to the UAE due to threats from extortionists. At least 28 doctors from teaching hospitals have also taken long leaves and left the city.

In the same report, Superintendent of Cantt Police Faisal Kamran revealed that around 40 FIRs were registered in extortion cases in February and March, with 60 arrests. “Most of them are not militants, but petty criminals taking advantage of the situation,” he said.

Meanwhile, four industrial units have already been attacked with rockets or bombs in the Hayatabad Industrial Estate, the largest of its kind in the province, with nearly 440 industrial units. According to a senior official of the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KPCCI), at least 150 businessmen and industrialists have moved their factories from Peshawar to other parts of the country or have shifted abroad.

Pushed against a wall

Earlier this month, the business community of the province decided to launch a phase-wise protest campaign to force the government into providing them with adequate security and ensuring a ‘business-friendly’ environment.

During a news conference at KPCCI earlier this week, the chamber’s president Zahidullah Shinwari claimed the traders’ body will establish a protest camp at the chamber’s premises and in the second phase, organise a rally. This will be followed by a sit-in outside the Chief Minister House and the provincial assembly.

If the government fails to take measures, the business community would be forced to close shop and begin protesting indefinitely, Shinwari threatened.

Doing their ‘best’

In May this year, IGP Nasir Khan Durrani sent a report to the Ministry of Interior suggesting the implementation of an effective border management system, banning international SIMs in Pakistan and engaging all the stakeholders to mobilise international support to curb extortion.

A senior police official said they are trying their best to bring the situation under control. “Most of these people are common criminals who use grenades and dynamites, mostly used in mining, to target houses and offices of traders. They have no expertise of assembling a bomb,” he informed.

Many of them impersonate the Taliban and use their official letterheads to deliver their demands to appear sinister and serious in their ‘request’, the official added. “We have arrested 130 extortionists so far in the city but most criminal groups are based in the tribal areas and are, thus, out of our reach,” he explained.

Published in The Express Tribune, June 8^th, 2014.