Karachi sees serious deterioration in law and order situation this year

A number of innocent people lost their lives in just two months.
The city has witnessing a serious deterioration in the law and order situation since the beginning of this year, as more than 190 people, including activists of various political parties and a journalist, have been killed over the past two months.

Observers say that Karachi is a city where several issues crop up every day, with the major problem being ethnic and sectarian violence that has gripped the city for quite some time. Besides, street crimes have been going on unabated and this year too a number of people became victims of street criminals, who also took the lives of several innocent citizens.

A number of innocent people lost their lives during ethnic and sectarian violence in the first two of months of 2011, during which many vehicles, tea hotels, shops, buses, mini-buses and stalls were torched by miscreants.

Observers point out that besides ethnic violence there is a marked presence of militants in the city who have been targeting people and trying to ignite a new spate of sectarian violence, which would prove highly dangerous for the city.

Commenting on the police performance and the Police Order-2002, a senior officer said it was basically the Police Order-2002 that caused damage to the entire policing system throughout the country, including Sindh.

The separation of investigation staff under the Police Order worsened the crime situation, he said, adding that the extent of the system’s failure could be gauged from the withdrawal of this system.

Moreover, a lower rate of convictions in the courts is mainly attributed to the poor performance of the prosecution and investigation staff. Under the Police Order-2002, the prosecution branch had been separated from the police and placed under the director of the prosecution working under the Home Department. This system also failed miserably as the separate prosecution branch was neither fully mobilised nor fully withdrawn from the Police Department.

The basic unit of policing is the police station, and it is the SHO who is responsible to control crime in his jurisdiction. The SHO is not only responsible to control crime but he also acts as the chief intelligence officer in his area.

The general deterioration in the policing system at this level has given rise to the overall crime not only in the entire province.

Constables constitute the backbone of the police force, but the plight of low-paid personnel go unnoticed, which makes cops mix up with criminals at the lower level. This situation is directly or indirectly causing a rise in the crime rate. There is a general trend, especially in Karachi, that in order to show a smaller number of offences the police register robbery cases as theft cases, and this trend encourages petty criminals to turn into big gangsters.

Sources say that there is presence of a large number of weapons in various areas, as the authorities concerned are taking no action against the illegal arms and ammunition. Besides, no check is put in place to curb the smuggling of arms and ammunition despite the fact that the Sindh government had announced several times that a comprehensive de-weaponisation campaign would be launched, but those announcements were never translated into action.

The sources alleged that during the previous government a large number of arms and ammunition were supplied to various political groups, and fake arms licences were issued to workers of political groups. SHOs were being posted on political grounds and they had been protecting the workers of political groups in various localities of the city, they said.

The data on target killing in the past two months shows that mostly activists of the Mohajir Qaumi Movement, the PPP, the ANP and the ST were gunned down by unidentified persons and several FIRs were registered. In some cases the Sindh police were successful in apprehending those involved in the killings.

The areas that bore the brunt of the recent spate of violence include Shah Faisal Colony, Khokhrapar, Landhi, Saudabad, Quaidabad, Malir, Gulistan-i-Jauhar, Jauharabad, Liaquatabad, Nazimabad, Gulbahar, Ranchore Lane and Lines Area.

A senior officer, who wished anonymity, said the police recently arrested some major target killers and investigations showed that the target killers had their own intelligence networks and used to monitor the movements of their targets for several days or months before attempting to kill them. These criminal elements have the financial support from their groups which also provide them with arms and protection.

It has been demanded of the Sindh government authorities as well as the Establishment Division to take the matter seriously, give extra powers to the officers working in Karachi and make a comprehensive strategy to restore peace in the city.