Although the Karachi police have arrested the men believed to be involved in robberies at outlets of two meat supply brands, the owner of these shops says that the damage to his business had already been done.
"I have suffered losses worth millions of rupees in the series of robberies. But the worst part is customers are now scared coming to our shops,” said Gul Zaman, who owns Meat One and Khaas Meat outlets.
Zaman said he was running 18 outlets of Meat One and 10 outlets of Khaas Meat that were located in different parts of Karachi. “Of the 10 Khaas Meat outlets, seven were robbed over and over again,” he added.
The first robbery occurred at the Khaas Meat outlet in North Nazimabad in October 2015.
“I am lucky that Meat One, my other brand, has remained safe and only one robbery took place at its outlet.”
Zaman said 34 robberies had taken place at seven outlets of Khaas Meat since October 2015.
“The outlets in Soldier Bazaar and Block 13-D of Gulshan-e-Iqbal were looted five times each.
One day, only two members of the gang had looted two outlets of Khaas Meat in Soldier Bazaar and 13-D within a span of just 20 minutes,” he narrated.
“The robbers had mugged customers too. We registered a sharp decline in our number of customers as most people thought that the management might be involved in the robberies itself,” Zaman said.
SSP East Faisal Abdullah announced on Monday that two members of the gang involved in robbing meat shops in the city had been rounded up. Addressing a press conference, the SSP identified them as Muhammad Waseem and Muhammad Zubair. He added that a third gang member, Shoaib Sheikh, was still at large.
The SSP said in their separate statements, the two men had confessed to their involvement in the robberies. During interrogation, the two men said they were butchers before they started robbing meat shops.
Later, the Sindh IGP and the Karachi police chief announced a Rs0.1 million reward for the police team that arrested the suspects.