Four cops arrested for short-term kidnappings

Though the Sindh police now have a new slogan, ‘Proud to Serve’, it is apparently only the slogan that has been changed as policemen in the city still seem to be the same as they were before.

On the one hand, there are frequent discussions going on in the power circles on how to control various crimes in Karachi, particularly the rising incidents of street crime, but on the other hand, policemen themselves are being frequently found involved in criminal activities such as short-term kidnappings, robberies, gang rapes and extortion.

In the latest case, four policemen posted at the Sharea Faisal police station have been accused of their involvement in the short-term kidnapping of five citizens of Karachi, who were abducted and released after the payment of ransom money on September 19.

The four cops were taken into custody on Sunday for their alleged involvement in the short-term kidnapping case after the five citizens complained to the police high-ups against them.

In their written complaint, four of the abducted citizens, Shoaib, Khalid, Hammad and Yasir, narrated that a policeman, Waqar, and three other cops of the Sharea Faisal police kidnapped them on September 19 from the parking area of their residential apartment in District East. The citizens claimed that the cops took them to a vacant plot in the Gulshan-e-Jamal area and threatened to kill all of them in a fake encounter.

“They warned to kill us if we failed to pay money to them,” narrated the complainants. “Initially, they kidnapped four of us but later, they also abducted our fifth friend, Omair, who had called us on phone.”

The complainants alleged that the policemen snatched Rs30,000 from them, after which they took Omair to an ATM from where they withdrew Rs32,000 in two transactions. The five men told the police high-ups that the suspects released them after getting money and threatened them with dire consequences if they lodged any case against them. “The policemen released us only when we assured them that we will not tell the happenings with anyone.”

The District East SSP told the media that the incident came into his notice about a couple of days ago and he himself inquired into it. The officer added that all the four policemen had been taken into custody and a case would be registered against them.

Cases of bad cops

This is not for the first time some policemen of Karachi have been accused for their involvement in criminal activities. In the recent past, two policemen among six people were accused of raping a woman after a robbery incident in the Shadman Town area. The complainant told the police that armed suspects barged into her house on September 26 and raped her at gunpoint while taking pictures and making a video of their crime.

As a case was registered at the Ajmer Nagri police station, the police arrested six suspects who reportedly confessed to their crime. Two of them were identified as Malik Danish and Sarfraz, cops serving in Gulshan-e-Maymar and the West DIG office respectively.

In a similar fashion, the Arambagh police on October 1 claimed to have arrested an official of the Sindh Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) for his alleged involvement in demanding extortion money from a shopkeeper.