Karachi police on Tuesday rounded up seven street criminals from the city’s Gulistan-e-Jauhar. According to the SSP East Abdul Rahim Sheerazi, snatched motorcycles, weapons, mobile phones and drugs were recovered from the arrested street criminals. The street criminals handed over to Karachi police’s investigation team for further probe. Earlier this month, two wanted street criminals were shot dead in an ‘encounter’ in Karachi. According to police, the encounter took place in Shah Latif Town of Karachi, where two wanted street criminals were looting policemen in civil dress. Seeing the police party, the robbers opened fire and in retaliatory fire, both the street criminals were killed.

The identity of the alleged dacoits could not be ascertained, according to the initial reports. It was worth mentioned here that over 56,500 cases of street crime have been reported in Karachi during the current year, as shown in data. Over 19,000 mobile phones were snatched from citizens, while 104 cars were forcefully taken and 1,383 bikes were stolen. Around 35,000 citizens were deprived of their motorbikes during various incidents in the city. On the other hand, at least 56 people have lost their lives while resisting street criminals and 269 were injured as a result. Around 303 cases of house robberies have been reported in Karachi.

Earlier, Chief Minister of Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah issued directives to clear Karachi of street criminals while presiding over a meeting on law and order in the province. “Karachi needs to be cleaned of street criminals,” he said in the meeting. During briefing CM Murad during the meeting held a month earlier Inspector- General Police (IGP) Ghulam Nabi Memon spoke about special measures taken by the police to curb street crime. He said that police patrolling and an intelligence-based operation are underway to deal with criminals. The IGP shared that 26 incidents of mobile snatching were recorded in June, while 86 were recorded in July. Police logged a total of 4,195 motorcycle snatching incidents in June, while in July 3,849 bikes were snatched.

Credit: Independent News Pakistan-INP