KARACHI: Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) Karachi Ameer Monem Zafar Khan has announced a sit-in on Saturday, December 13, at Numaish Chowrangi to protest against what he described as “the deadly dumper and tanker mafia and the issuance of unjust e-challans” across the city.
He made the announcement while addressing a public press conference outside the Central Police Office (CPO) in Sindh, where he criticised the growing number of heavy-traffic accidents, the loss of civilian lives, and the government’s “non-transparent and anti-public” e-challan system.
Calling on the “long-suffering people of Karachi” to participate in large numbers, he urged citizens to join the ‘Haq Do Karachi Movement’, saying the struggle for the legitimate rights of Karachi’s 35 million residents would continue with full force. He demanded that the Sindh government clarify how many injured citizens have been treated under the Umar Amal Act, noting that the authorities remain quick to penalise citizens but incapable of providing basic safety or justice.
He said Karachi’s broken roads, overflowing gutters, and failing infrastructure continue to worsen public hardship. He accused the PPP-led Sindh government of incompetence and corruption, arguing that while it is “highly active in issuing e-challans,” it has failed to curb crime.
Questioning the performance of the traffic police, he asked the DIG Traffic: “How many roads in the city have proper traffic signals and zebra crossings? If the issues of signals and roads are to be solved by fining motorcyclists, then what role remains for the traffic police?”
Sharing the city’s alarming crime statistics, he said that over the past 11 months 41,000 motorcycles and 16,000 mobile phones were snatched, 84 citizens were killed during armed robberies, and 244 people lost their lives due to heavy-traffic incidents.
“What kind of governance is this,” he asked, “where criminals roam freely while heavy fines are imposed on citizens through cameras? The Sindh government should tell the public how many criminals have been arrested in these incidents.”
He criticised repeated claims by the DIG Traffic that trackers and sensors would be installed in heavy vehicles, questioning how many of the dumpers or tankers involved in the more than 250 heavy-vehicle accidents so far had such systems installed.
Monem Zafar noted that Karachi has over four million motorcycles, yet the Sindh government has failed to provide a viable public transport system. As a result, he said, citizens are left at the mercy of “deadly dumpers, tankers, and heavy vehicles.”
Monem Zafar said, “There is no city in the world where dumpers and trailers crush innocent people with such impunity and then flee.”
Copyright Business Recorder, 2025
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