Anti-street crime squad formed for Tariq Road

As incidents of street crime continue unabated in the city, a rapid response force (RFF) has been formed to deal with street crime in one of the most prominent commercial centres of the city – Tariq Road.

The RRF comprises 40 police personnel. The aim of the force is to deal with the rising incidents of street crimes on Tariq Road and its surroundings through maintaining coordination with the traders and citizens.

“This motorcycle force has been formed to protect all the traders, shopkeepers and citizens on Tariq Road,” said District East SSP Ghulam Azfar Mahesar at the inauguration ceremony of the force. According to SSP Mahesar, ten motorcycles and a car have been provided to the force initially. The strength of RFF would be increased later, he said.

Explaining measures taken against street crime on Tariq Road, he said CCTV cameras had been installed on 70 per cent area of Tariq Road and uniformed female police personnel would also patrol at the main shopping malls on the road.

Due to the rising incidents of street crime in Jamshed Town division, which includes Tariq Road, the police in June 2017 had chalked out a strategy against street crime and established a separate anti-street crime force, comprising police personnel on at least 12 motorcycles, for the division.

Street Watch Force

Though the law enforcement agencies (LEAs) achieved obvious successes in the recent years in curbing targeted killings, extortion and kidnappings for ransom in the city, they, however, failed to control the biggest law and order issue of the city – street crime – that seems to have affected every other citizen of the city.

An overwhelmingly large number of citizens of Karachi have been deprived of their valuables by street criminals in the recent years and some of them even lost their lives as robbers shot them for resisting muggings.

Data compiled by media organisations and the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee reveals that in the first eight months of the ongoing year, around 36 citizens, including women, children and LEAs personnel, lost their lives to street criminals and 402 others were injured for resisting attempted muggings. During this period, 968 citizens were robbed of their mobile phones from their four-wheelers, whereas 18,819 citizens on two-wheelers and 13,034 pedestrians also lost their mobile phones.

In order to counter rampant street crime in the city, Karachi police chief Additional IGP Dr Amir Shaikh on October 13 announced forming a specialised force, named Street Watch Force, comprising 1,870 personnel.

A majority of the police personnel in the Street Watch Force are newly recruited in the Sindh police. They will patrol the streets and roads in a group of four on two motorcycles. The district SSPs have been appointed as heads of the force within their districts.

It may be noted here that the police in two districts of the city, South and Korangi, have already experimented with the use of a specialised force to combat rising incidents of street crime. Initially, former South SSP Javed Akbar Riaz established an anti-street crime force in District South and later Korangi SSP Sajid Sadozai did the same.

According to SSP Sadozai, the experiment proved successful. “In my district, there is a massive decrease in street crime, as six to seven daily incidents of snatching have now decreased to two or three,” he told The News. “Now we are strengthened and would be able to combat street crime more effectively,” the SSP explained. He added that a four-member special team had also been formed to monitor the force.