Chief Minister of Sindh Syed Murad Ali Shah on Friday directed police department to launch a vigorous targeted operation against street criminals and their supporters. "This must be vital and result oriented," he said.
He was presiding a special meeting on law and order particularly on street crimes in the city. The meeting was attended by Chief Secretary Rizwan Memon, IG Sindh AD Khowaja, Additional IG Karachi Mushtaq Maher, Additional IG CTD Sanaullah Abbasi, Principal Secretary to CM Naveed Kamran Baloch, Home Secretary Shakeel Mangnijo, Commissioner Karachi Aijaz Ali Khan, CPLC chief Zubair, DIG Traffic Asif Aijaz Shaikh and others.
The chief minister in his opening remarks said that he was not happy with the facts and figures of street crimes presented in the cabinet meeting on Thursday. "This is why I have convened a follow up meeting to review the rate of street crimes and devise a pragmatic strategy to crush the criminals," he said.
Additional IG Karachi Mushtaq Maher, giving a 15 days comparative figures of street crime as collected by CPLC said that in 2015 around 19 four wheelers were snatched while in 2016 the figure dropped to 7 and in 2017 the figure reached to 18. Talking about four wheelers theft he said that in 2015, 92 four wheelers were stolen, in 2016 the figure came down slightly to 73 and in 2017 it has further come down to 52. He said that 2-wheeler snatching in 2015 was 152 and in 2016 it came down to 114 and in 2017 it has been recorded at 65.
Discussing the 2-wheelers theft he said that in 2015 it was 592, in 2016 the figure slightly dropped 762 and in 2017 it is 734. Maher added that the mobile snatching in 2015 was 1187, in 2016 it came down to 791 and now means 2017 it is 530. He said that 13 police stations are most affected in terms of mobile snatching, 4 and 2-wheeler theft and snatching, adding that in 2016 around 1548 street criminals were arrested and challaned, of them 14 were convicted while 3 acquitted. Presently 1082 are in jail and 449 got the bail. Commenting on these figures, the Chief Minister said that though the figures have come down but it is a fact that street crimes persists in the city and the citizens' complaints are genuine.
IG AD Khowaja told that there was a link between street crimes and drug addiction. The criminals mostly belong to slum areas.
He said that the sanctioned strength for Karachi police is 39589 while only 27389 are posted and working that shows a shortfall of 12200 policemen. On this the chief minister allowed and directed IG to fill recruitment on merit.
While comparing with big cities of the world, it was pointed out that the population of Karachi is 22 million with a police force of 27389 which makes a ratio of 1 policeman for 803 people. On this the chief minister said that police and people in city are not bad, there may be some administrative issues which must be addressed properly.
He directed the IG police to expedite the installation of CCTV project on war footings and order extensive patrolling in the affected areas. The complainants must be urged through CPLC to pursue the cases.
Chief Minister ordered IG Police to develop close co-ordination in various wings of the police and operation against street criminals must be properly worked out and focused while drug and land mafias may also be crushed properly.
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