Peshawar tops extortion cases registration

PESHAWAR: Over 40 percent of the 425 extortion cases lodged across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa in the last four years were registered in the provincial capital, followed by Khyber district.

As many as 170 cases of extortion were registered in Peshawar from 2021 till mid-March 2025, which makes 40 per cent of the total 425 cases lodged across KP. Another 59 cases were reported in Khyber, also a district of the Peshawar region, which makes another 13.88 per cent.

As many as 44 cases of extortion were lodged by CTD across KP in 2021, 72 in 2022, 129 in 2023, a similar number of 129 cases in 2024 and 51 cases were registered during 2025 till mid-March.

The figure does not include a large number of incidents in different districts of KP, which were either not reported to police or only filed as a daily diary.Many politicians and lawmakers were among those who received threats as an increase was witnessed in cases of extortion across Khyber Pakhtunkhwa for the last couple of years.

Many houses, offices and shops were attacked with grenades in recent years, mostly by extortionists after the owners failed to pay the amount.Most of those receiving calls restrict movement, install CCTV cameras and increase their security. The situation, however, keeps the entire family under stress for a long time, especially when a house, shop, or office is attacked with explosives.

According to the official figures of registered cases only in Peshawar, the Counter Terrorism Department lodged 16 cases in 2021, 35 in 2022, 44 in 2023, 65 in 2024 and 10 cases in Peshawar till the first week of March this year.

In Khyber, one case was lodged in 2021, 4 in 2022, 20 each in 2024 and 2024 and 14 in the first two and a half months of 2025. During the current year, the highest number of cases, 14, were lodged in Khyber, followed by 10 in Peshawar and eight in Mardan.

Among the other districts, the total number of cases lodged in Mardan in four years was 21, Mohmand 19, Charsadda 18, Kohat 16, Hangu 14, Swat 13, Tank 12, Dera Ismail Khan 10, Nowshera and Bajaur 9 each, Bannu 7, Upper Dir, Lakki Marwat, Swabi 5 each, Lower Dir and South Waziristan registeted four each cases of extortion in the last almost four years.

Besides, two cases were reported in Karak, two in Orakzai, one in Kurram, two in Malakand district, two in Shangla and one in Chitral.In the Hazara division, three cases each were reported in Abbottabad and Mansehra, while no case was reported from any other district.

After several complaints of extortion calls, the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Police had set up a special anti-extortion desk a couple of years back in the Counter-Terrorism Department to deal with such cases and bust the networks.

The cops were instructed in 2022 to at least register the cases either as a first information report (FIR) or daily diary (DD) to provide some relief to the victims.It was learnt that after the instructions, 49 cases were lodged as FIRs and 368 were registered as DDs in the remaining duration of only 2022.

“The main hurdle the KP Police face while going after the extortionists is the phone calls from non-local numbers, internet-generated resources, illegal gateways and WhatsApp numbers. Apart from various groups, criminal rings were also found to be involved in many calls,” said an official who did not want to be identified.

It was gathered that during the last few years, hundreds of Afghan phone numbers and illegal gateways were used for making extortion calls.These numbers and illegal gateways have been shared with the relevant quarters many times to take it up at the relevant forums.

When asked about the extortion cases, a senior police official said the issue of calls from abroad had been taken up with the relevant quarters, while local gangs involved in extortion and hand grenade attacks had been busted in the last few years, which, he claimed, improved the situation.