Another young woman becomes a statistic due to police incompetence

A third-year student of the Hamdard University was gunned down in Karachi’s Gulshan-e-Iqbal neighbourhood on Thursday. The tragic incident took place a few meters away from the victim’s house in Abid Town.

According to the victim’s uncle Kashif Ahmed, for the past three years his brother Athar Ahmed used to drive his 24-year-old daughter Misbah Athar to the bus stop near Mochi Morr, from where she used to get a university point bus.

“They were sitting in the car this morning waiting for a point bus when two men riding a motorcycle came close to the driver’s seat and one of them snatched Athar’s mobile phone.” One of the suspects later fired a single shot that hit Misbah in the head near her eye, critically wounding her. She was immediately taken to a nearby private hospital, where doctors pronounced her dead on arrival. Her body was then taken to the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Centre for completing the medico-legal formalities.

After the incident a heavy contingent of police and Rangers arrived at the crime scene, from where the empty shell of a pistol was found and then despatched to the forensic division of the Sindh police for ballistics cross-matching. Police confirmed the incident as a mugging.

“After snatching the mobile phone, one of the robbers fired a single shot and they escaped,” said Gulshan-e-Iqbal SHO Safdar Mashwani, who was transferred to the Al-Falah police station a few hours after the incident.

The officer said the motorcyclists were aged between 20 and 25 years, adding that the police were yet to get the CCTV footage, while they were also trying to get the sketches of the suspects made with the help of the witnesses, particularly the victim’s father, who was in shock.

The Sindh police chief, IGP Dr Syed Kaleem Imam, took notice of the murder and ordered the relevant police officials to immediately trace the whereabouts of the suspects and arrest them. He also ordered a detailed report on the incident to be submitted to him.

Grave statistics

Street crime incidents and robberies continue to be on the rise across the city. According to the official statistics and reports gathered from newspapers, on an average five people are killed and more than 50 injured in muggings every month.

From January 1 to September 30 this year, some 50 people, including women, children and personnel of law enforcement agencies, have been killed and around 500 others injured.

On September 28, a 27-year-old Pakistan Army soldier named Asad Ali Khan was martyred over resisting a mugging attempt outside his residence in the Landhi neighbourhood.

Four motorcyclists are believed to have been involved in the incident. Khan got hold of one of the suspects, which prompted an accomplice to shoot the soldier in the chest. On September 19, Rangers soldier Lance Naik Mir Afzal, 42, was martyred in a firing incident on the Naval Colony Bridge in the jurisdiction of the Mochko police station. Dressed in plain clothes, he was returning home in Musharraf Colony after duty when he was shot in the stomach. It is believed that the incident was also one of resistance over a mugging bid.