Lost in jurisdiction: How Karachi police’s colonial mindset works

Karachi, the economic engine of Pakistan, generates the lion’s share of the country’s revenue. Yet, its workforce continues to pay a heavy personal and financial toll to an unchecked street crime epidemic. While the corporate sector is urged to digitize and innovate, the law enforcement apparatus tasked with protecting this human capital remains broken, paralyzed by bureaucratic indifference and an obsolete system of police jurisdictions.

On the fateful evening of September 23, 2026, at approximately 07:30 p.m., a young professional — my son — was returning home from his office along the main Shahra-e-Faisal. Near the FTC bridge, a central transit point for the city’s business community, a motorcyclist pulled up under the guise of asking for directions. Within seconds, the deception turned into aggression. The criminal snatched his bag and vanished into the traffic. Inside that bag was a new laptop, a smartphone and a wallet. For a young professional, these are not mere luxury items; they are the essential tools of profession in the modern economy.

The immediate economic loss of high-end tech hardware and digital connectivity is substantial, but the secondary costs are higher. Incidents like these disrupt commercial workflows, compromise sensitive data, and inflict deep psychological trauma on the workforce.

Yet, the ordeal of dealing with the state’s security infrastructure proved to be just as exhausting as the robbery itself. What followed over the next three days highlights why Karachi struggles to retain talent and foster a secure business environment. Shaken by the event, my son immediately sought to lodge a complaint at the Saddar Police Station (P.S.), located within walking distance. Instead of receiving assistance, he was trapped in a jurisdiction dispute.

The duty officer at P.S. Saddar claimed the incident occurred within the boundaries of P.S. Ferozabad. Upon walking to Ferozabad, my son was told the exact opposite: the FTC bridge area fell under Saddar. Shunted between stations like a hot potato, he was forced to return home late that night empty-handed — without his belongings, and denied the basic legal right to register a police report or First Information Report (FIR). The next morning, I accompanied him back to P.S. Saddar. We faced the same territorial pushback from the same duty officer. It was only after a persistent demand to meet the Station House Officer (SHO) — who was out on field rounds but reached via a phone call — that we received a verbal assurance that our report would be processed.

However, the “administrative” stalling tactics simply shifted. After waiting for an hour and a half, we were told to return the next day because the “light will come at 11:00 a.m.” to access surveillance footage, or that the camera supervisor or facilitator would contact us. Because my son had to report to his office to handle the fallout of his stolen work laptop, an immediate return visit was impossible.

It was not until September 26 — three full days after the crime — that the police report (kachcha report) was finally registered, solely due to a direct personal intervention with the SHO. Shockingly, the case was logged entirely without reviewing any camera visuals. The excuses evolved from unfortunate absence of light to the non-attendance of the designated female official from Safe City Karachi.

This gridlock raises structural questions for policymakers and the provincial government. Millions of rupees are routinely funneled into initiatives like “Safe City Karachi” and digital surveillance. We live in an era of satellite imagery, real-time GPS tracking, and mobile cell tower triangulation. Why, then, does a citizen’s access to justice still depend on physical boundary disputes dating back to the colonial era? A crime committed on a major commercial artery like Shahra-e-Faisal should trigger immediate, cross-district digital logging.

Instead, victims are treated like boundary surveyors, forced to beg neighboring police stations to take ownership of a crime scene. If Karachi is to remain a viable hub for commerce and investment, its security infrastructure must match the speed of the 21st century. When tech-dependent criminals exploit the agility of modern mobility, an analog police force bogged down by paperwork, jurisdictional territorialism, and offline cameras leaves the tax-paying citizen entirely undefended.

Copyright Business Recorder, 2026