Ateeq Minhas, 26, was standing outside his house, ready to welcome a guest. It was around 5pm when two middle-aged men, riding a motorbike, stopped by. The one in the back seat greeted him politely and inquired the address of a person in the neighbourhood.

Minhas tried to explain the location to the men but they insisted he should show them the way. Minhas agreed and started walking to the house which was located in the next street. The minute they entered the street, the bikers pushed him against the wall and aimed their guns at him. Within moments Minhas was deprived of his possessions including his wallet and mobile phone.

Hafiz Zahid, 40, was riding his motorbike when two young boys approached him from a side. They were also on a bike. They told Zahid that they spotted petrol leakage from his bike and asked him to fix it.

Zahid applied brakes and got off the bike, only to discover that the boys were criminals who wanted to loot him.

Another incident that happened recently involved a young boy named Ali who was having a dessert drink in Old Anarkali while sitting in his car, when two men hopped in and aimed their guns at him.

Ali’s fault was that he had parked his car at a rather deserted place and not locked himself in. The dacoits walked away with the booty.

When the police arrived, Ali came to know that the men were part of a gang.

There are endless incidents of mugging that routinely take place in and around the city. The modus operandi of the muggers keeps changing, which is why even the extra cautious people are duped.

There is a perception that such incidents are on the increase and go unnoticed by the police, because the victims do not pursue their cases. Umer Riaz, Superintendent of Police (SP), Crime Record Office (CRO), Lahore rejects the notion as a fallacy.

He says the mapping of street crime is done in the city, to work out preventive strategies.

Riaz also says that there are three types of mugging incidents that take place in the city. First, there are incidents where people are robbed of cash. These people are actually being followed from the time they leave the banks or ATMs. Most of these incidents take place between 9am-10 am and 4pm-5pm.

The occurrence of such incidents is the highest during the first and the last few days of a month.

Riaz says that cash snatching takes place mostly in Model Town, Shadman, Gulberg and City Center which are business hubs. The criminals keep their eyes out as people leave bank premises and follow them to the location where they can rob them most easily.

The second type of mugging incidents happen in posh areas where the women who are returning home after shopping or dropping off their kids at school; these women are looted outside or close to their residences. The looters walk away with jewellery, cash, mobile phones and any other valuables that they find.

The third type involves first-timers or wet-behind-the-ears criminals who stop the commuters or pedestrians and deprive them of their belongings at gunpoint.

The SP says one reason for this ‘trend’ is that a large number of criminal gangs have been busted by the police and they are out of the scene. The new ones who can get a hand on a pistol for Rs1,500-2,000 are ready to take a chance.

He supports his claim about the busted gangs with figures that show that incidents of organised crime have come down. For example, he says there was only one bank robbery in the city in 2014, only about 10 kidnappings for ransom (all of which were traced), not a single case of extortion and far less house robberies than in preceding year.

Riaz says the police has offered services to banks and any person who withdraws Rs5 lakhs or more can be escorted to his home by policemen if he asks the branch manager to provide the service.

The same service can be provided if the amount is Rs 3 lakhs, he adds.

While the looters can attack anyone, they are sure to get a hand on a mobile phone or two in every hit. The fact that a mobile phone is the most visible belonging of a person tempts the looters more. A mechanism was introduced by the country’s telecom regulator to block unique International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number of stolen/snatched sets to make these useless.

Khurram Mehran, Director, Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) says that IEMI blocking system has discouraged mobile snatching to an extent as the blocked mobile phones are not saleable commodities.

He says that often the stolen mobiles are put at the same place from where they were lifted when the thieves find they have no value in the market.

According to Mehran, the system was launched first in Karachi where incidents of mobile theft and snatching have always been high. Later on, this system was introduced in other cities including Lahore.

Quite often, the genuine owners of recovered mobiles approach PTA and ask them to unblock their IEMIs so that they can use them once again. A large number of mobile phones have been recovered from criminal bangs by the police over the years and many of these are found with blocked IEMIs.

An inspector in Punjab police says street crime has increased as people carry valuables such as mobile phones, laptops, jewellery along when they are moving out.

The police, says the inspector, is struggling hard to curb the menace which is increasing also due to unemployment and widespread income disparity. The people who exhibit their wealth are also responsible for such incidents and attract looters.

He says that stolen phones are still a saleable commodity as some unscrupulous elements have the skill to tamper with and unblock the IMEIs. The blocked mobiles are smuggled to Afghanistan as well where they work.