KCCI blasts Police performance over rising street crimes

KARACHI: The rising street crimes all over the city poses a big question mark on the performance of Law Enforcing Agencies (LEAs), an official said on Monday.

Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) President Muhammad Idrees has said that the LEAs are completely unsuccessful in dealing with the menace of street crimes while the agonies of public have intensified.

A new trend has emerged in the city where people and commuters were being fearlessly intercepted and beaten by the armed gunmen and security guards either escorting or guarding vehicles bearing government number plates, fancy number plates or no number plates, he added.

Idrees said that the KCCI has constantly been receiving complaints in which the people and also the members of the business community were being beaten by armed gunmen and security guards.

“Incidents pertaining to assault by private gunmen have become a routine on the streets of Karachi where any influential person orders his guards to beat the innocent people which happens nowhere around the world,” he said.

The KCCI president stressed that in order to effectively curb the rising street crimes and provide a safe and secure environment to Karachiites, the LEAs have to revisit all their strategies being pursued to secure the streets of Karachi where people were being looted, injured and even killed without any fear even during broad daylight.

He urged that the Police and Rangers must intensify patrolling and snap checking at some of the most sensitive localities of Karachi from where the street crimes were widely being reported, besides keeping a vigil on the activities of those vehicles, mostly double-cabin 4×4 being escorted by security guards.

“Display of proper identity of such security guards has to be made mandatory so that they could easily be taken to task if found responsible for creating problems for others,” he suggested.

The Karachi Chamber has brought the rising lawlessness issue to the notice of heads of LEAs and hoped that they will take practical steps to safeguard the streets of Karachi where it was high time to take stringent measures so that street crimes could be controlled while a couple of examples must also be set to put an end to the hooliganism by the power people, he said.

He underscored the need to carry out effective policing all over Karachi where the population has risen to more than 25 million whereas the law and order situation has been worsening day by day due to increase in street crimes, burglaries, thefts, motorcycle and vehicle snatching.

Moreover, it was also a matter of concern that the policemen deployed at the stations in the suburbs of Karachi including Gadap Town, instead of dealing with lawlessness, were usually busy in seeking bribes from the owners of plots who were constructing boundary walls to secure their plots.

“Law and order issue was linked with poor economic performance as it has been observed that the economic and business activities were shrinking and joblessness was rising therefore, many people were landing up in the world of crime to fulfil their needs,” he added.