MWM leaders term Karachi ‘crime capital’ of Pakistan

KARACHI: Terming Karachi the ‘crime capital’ of Pakistan, leaders of the Majlis Wahdat-e-Muslimeen (MWM) on Wednesday berated the Sindh government and law enforcement agencies over the deteriorating law and order situation in the city.Addressing a press conference at Syedul Shahada Community Hall, MWM Sindh Political Secretary Ali Hussain Naqvi and other leaders including Allama Sadiq Jafri, Allama Mubashir Hassan, Asif Safavi and Ahsan Abbas also demanded the removal of the District Korangi SSP over the last month’s killings of an Imambargah trustee and his young son in the Korangi area.They expressed concern over the continuing incidents of robberies and mugging in Karachi, in which several people had lost their lives and a large number of people had been deprived of their valuables.

They demanded that the authorities take effective measures against street criminals and ensure safety of the public.“[Karachi] is called the commercial capital, but if we look at the crimes committed here, there is no harm in calling it a crime capital,” an MWM leader said. “Providing security to the people is the primary responsibility of the state institutions. The increasing street crime in the city is a question mark on the efficiency of the security institutions.”It was said that the law enforcement agencies and government had become silent spectators as street crime was increasing day by day in the city with the citizens suffering from insecurity due to incidents of snatching and murders.

The MWM leaders also lamented the political instability, economic crisis, high inflation and non-provision of basic facilities that had broken the back of the people.Sharing the crime statistics, the MWM leaders said that in the last five months, citizens were deprived of 24,161 motorcycles, and 30 people had lost their lives.They said that during the last month in a Korangi locality, a well-known resident of the area, Syed Safdar Shah, and his young son Azhar Shah were killed near their residence but their killers were yet to be arrested.The MWM leaders remarked that the chief minister only pretended to take notice of the crime incidents as the criminals were not arrested.

It was said that in some crime incidents, CCTV footage had also come to the fore, but no action was taken against the people involved in those crimes.The MWM leaders demanded immediate arrests of those involved in killing citizens, including Shah. They said the Korangi SSP should be immediately suspended for his failure to ensure law and order in the district, which had become a hotspot of crime.