What must happen before action to de-weaponise Karachi can begin?

Karachi has been in the grip of lawlessness, especially street crime, for the past many decades. Many a plan has been made from time to time to restore law and order, but to no avail.

Some senior officials are of the opinion that to curb the menace of lawlessness, including street crime, an effective tool is to de-weaponise the city, and before implementing such a policy, the authorities have to increase the police manpower and ensure effective coordination among law enforcing agencies. This plan should include marking of areas, especially the slums, before starting decisive action.

Official sources say that in Karachi there is a huge presence of weapons not only local but also foreign. Moreover, criminal groups, especially muggers, possess arms submachine guns, rifles and 9mm pistols without any licence.

They maintain that these weapons are not present in each and every house of the city, but they are possessed by various criminal groups, which are ready to fight whenever they encounter law enforcers. In the ethnic and other forms of violence that occurred in the city over the last few years and badly damaged the economy of the country, many innocent people were killed.

Official sources say that with the help of a survey they have collected information from Karachi’s different districts, including Central, East, Malir, Keamari and West, where it has been noticed that there is a huge presence of arms in highway and border areas of the city. However, they admit that de-weaponising the city would not be easy and would require the presence of law enforcers in big numbers and a good intelligence network. According to a report, various groups possess a big number of 9mm pistols.

Officials say the government this time is resorting to employing high-teach equipment which they have procured from a foreign country for combating the terrorist networks. This equipment is capable of detecting weapons even if they are buried in the ground. This high-teach equipment includes a satellite imaginary system which can detect those hideouts in particular where weapons are hidden, and sensory gadgets can identify the weapons buried underneath the ground.

A senior official talking to The News said that the best option to curb the menace of street crime and other types of crime is de-weaponsation as this can be much effective to control the lawlessness rampant in Karachi. He added that several policies have been adopted to curb the menace of the street crime, but all in vain, as in many cases whenever the police arrest an outlaw or a mugger and make a recovery, the complainant refuses to support the investigation and that benefits the criminal as they get bail and restart their criminal activities. Moreover, in many cases of arrests it has also been witnessed that the suspect arrested has a criminal record and was on bail or an absconder. So before making another policy to curb the menace of street crime, it’s an option to work

upon the de-weaponisation procedure.

Explaining about the 9mm bore, the official said that basically the 9mm pistol is an official weapon of NATO troops, and in Pakistan weapons usually smuggled from across South Asia, mostly Afghanistan, are used.

He added that earlier Kalashnikovs were mostly used in Karachi by target killing groups, but after the coming of the 9mm pistol criminal groups, including muggers, started using it because it is semi-automatic, small in size and easy to carry. The 9mm bore pistols in Pakistan, mostly in Karachi, are first found to be China- made, and later Darra Adam Khel became their biggest manufacturer at cheapest rates. 9mm pistols -- CF-98 China – are being used by street criminals these days.

The official said that usually criminal groups import weapons from outside the country, and in a few cases they also bust gangs after the latter order weapons via arms dealers. He said it is easy to catch them because the customs has a record of the buyer who imports the weapons. From Darra Adam Khel, the other mode of transportation of weapons by these groups is intercity buses or trains.