KARACHI, Nov 9 : The advent of Ramazan saw a sharp rise in the incidence of robbery in the city.
With a large number of people withdrawing cash from bank accounts to avoid Zakat deduction, armed bandits, a day before the start of the holy month, had a field day, as an estimated amount of Rs100,000 was taken away in different incidents of robbery.
One Saleem Zafar was deprived of Rs500,000 near the naval graveyard on Dalmia Road. Mr Zafar was robbed in the Shahrae Faisal police limits.
On the same day, a petrol pump cashier was robbed of Rs400,000 by armed men in broad daylight on main Shahrae Faisal. On the same day (a day earlier of Ramazan) some armed men deprived Mr Atir Zaheer Khan of Rs1,90, 000 in the limits of the Garden police station.
In almost all the cited cases, the persons robbed were returning home after withdrawing cash from different banks in different parts of the city.
A senior police official said the bandits were well aware of the account holders practice and took full advantage of it.
A close watch (outside and inside banks) on, and tipoffs about, potential targets are always used in such robberies. A police official said that close circuit cameras inside banks had failed to deter monitoring within their premises.
In Ramazan, on the night of Oct 1, the house of a prominent artist, Guljee, was robbed in Clifton. Foreign and local currency, jewellry and other valuables were taken away by the robbers. The police arrested three housemaids but failed to recover the stolen valuables.
A day later, the house of a police official was robbed by unidentified armed men in Gulberg Block 12. They held the family hostage and deprived them of cash and valuables.
In Lyari armed robberies in minibuses increased manifold. A resident of Lyari told Dawn that armed robberies in minibuses had drastically increased during Ramazan.
“Unidentified armed men enter minibuses and rob passengers, especially during the night. Passengers are even deprived of the items they have bought,” said a commuter.
As Eid shopping is picking up, the incidence of robbery is expected to increase drastically with criminal gangs becoming active to cash in on the season.
The police believe that on occasions like Eid gangs from different parts of the country become active in Karachi. Though the police recently claimed to have busted two gangs of robbers in the city, the graph of robberies has yet to show a decline.
