From buses to hospitals: insecurity all the way

Quite possibly Karachiites have at least one eye on the forthcoming local bodies polls, and as time goes by the focus will sharpen. Law and order will be virtually primary concerns. Even official quarters are signalling its importance.  

In this context, crime stories will assume deeper significance. Some citizens may even attribute to this period of transition (rather uncertainty?) the recent disturbing increase in the number of cellphone snatching, and the bloody violence that seems to be coming as part of the package. That sleekly swiftly executed cellphone theft and brutally, boldly implemented cellphone snatching will continue to grow, as the telecom industry expands in the land, is something that is virtually acknowledged.    

What is disturbing for citizens is that there is still not coming the good news that stolen mobile phones can be rendered inoperative and useless. From the look of things, there is still business in the proposition of dealing in stolen or snatched phones which is still a profitable vacation. For those of us who carry even modestly priced phone sets, there is not yet good news that solidly assures us that were the phone to be taken away by criminals it would not be possible to use it. Cold comfort though that would be.

Getting physically hurt because of a mobile phone being snatched is a reality now. But it seems that it is becoming an unreasonable possibility that a person can lose his life in the process of a phone being snatched. By the way, one has noticed that mobile phone and cars are among the prized crime booties, and some recent news reports are indicating that cell phones get snatched more than cars, or two wheelers. Some reflection of the way crime is going.

See what happened in the city on Thursday when 140 phones were snatched and in one instance they killed a doctor of the Jinnah hospital when he reportedly resisted the snatching of his cellphone. This happened in Gizri area. Dr Moosa, said a Dawn report on July 8th, was shot at and wounded during the scuffle and was sent to the hospital where he succumbed to his injuries. One of the three men who carried out the crime was arrested. On that day, in Karachi six cars were taken away at gunpoint and 13 motorbikes were stolen.   

Take a look at the overview vis a vis cellphones snatched. Since January this year, a total of 11,161 cellphones have been snatched or stolen in Karachi. In the first week of July alone 1,569 cellphones have been snatched or stolen.

Almost every morning now, there are disturbing numbers of cellphone snatching instances which should surely indicate the state of mind of citizens. Not just those who carry phones, but even those who encash cheques, or carry valuables on their person have to think hard about being street smart. A colleague says that the habit of using brief cases has declined because of the insecurity that goes with it, now office goers and executes prefer bags of some other sorts.

Having said this, one contemplates the growing vulnerability of those who travel by public buses. There is now nothing really surprising about reports that a couple of armed men looted a bus full of passengers, and melted into the environment swiftly easily.

See what happened in North Nazimabad on Tuesday. Briefly, three men armed and daring, entered the air-conditioned bus of UTS route 21 at Nagin Chowrangi, and looted the passengers of cash and valuables. It was all at gunpoint. One commuter (Tanveer) resisted while handing over his cellphone. He was shot in the abdomen, and later died in the Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.    

North Nazimabad Town Police Officer Athar Rasheed Butt is quoted as saying that some commuters raised a hue and cry at the shooting inside the bus. When the driver did not comply the bandits opened fire at him. The bullet hit the wind screen instead. The bus stopped, the door was opened, and the bandits dashed out. Passengers chased them in vain.

The three suspects signalled a motorcyclist Abdul Khaliq to stop, who refused and got shot in the head, in the panic. He was taken to a hospital and then to Jinnah hospital where he died. One does imagine the shock, the sorrow that his family must have received on hearing the news. So many thoughts and questions about him and his family cross my mind.

What also comes to mind is that in this instance too, the three suspects escaped in a car they snatched. This vehicle was found abandoned in a deserted area of SITE. One wonders whether this crime story would ever get a follow up.

It needs to be mentioned here that travelling by public buses in particular, much as it is unavoidable, is steadily raising some worrying questions, with stories of how the entire bus loads of commuters have been robbed by armed men, who get on board as ordinary passengers. Can this be stopped? What would be the preventive measures?

It is relevant to mention here what the chief secretary has said about Karachi crime rate. Talking to the Japanese consul general Shoichi Nakano on Thursday, he said, “The crime rate in the city is low as compared to other big cities in the world”.

We keep on comparing ourselves to the big cities. He further said that due to joblessness there was street crime in town, but the rate was low when compared to the big cities.

One wonders what one would attribute as a cause of this scary incident that has taken place in Liaquat National Hospital in its executive wing. This hospital like many others in the city has a high level of security, one might add. This daily reported during the week that a young man walked into the private room of a patient where two attendants (a couple) were present. He introduced himself as the worker of a political party, and wanted financial help for his brother admitted in the hospital with a bullet injury.

The couple gave him Rs7,000 and the man deprived the woman of the gold bangles she was wearing. Not unexpectedly, the matter was not reported to the police, and not surprisingly the hospital management claimed it had no evidence of such an incident; but the hospital did concede that they “attended a claim that a family had been deprived. Strangely, the closed circuit camera monitoring system had no evidence of this incident. But security measures at the hospital had been enhanced, said a spokesman.

Whatever be the causes, poor security measures would be amongst them, in theft incidents.    Somewhat difficult to decide on where to end. With the subject of cellphones and how they are reportedly thriving in Saddar electronics market, where “cellphone dealers and police lock horns once again? With the subject of bus passengers, some of whom have expressed the fear that buses are unsafe places to carry valuables; or even executive wings of expensive hospitals where patients and attendants can get robbed; or with the thought that we are much safer as a city than most big cities in the world? The reader is free to take his pick!!

Out on a power trip

PARTICIPANTS in a seminar held in the city this week by the NGO South Asian Partnership evaluated the three years of the working of the local body system which was reinvented after the 1999 coup. A survey was conducted during the seminar involving all present, with the overwhelming majority saying the system had failed to deliver.

If you think the nazims have been given a rough deal by the provincial government under the revised devolution plan, you can think again. Councillors present at the seminar said it was they who had absolutely no power or say in the running of the local government. Hardly any debates took place over any issue at the union council level, they said, and all decisions were taken by their nazims without even bothering to consult them.

Most councillors said they were not aware of their roles or duties because no one ever instructed them on how to go about their business. Every UC was reportedly given Rs60,000 per month, most of which was spent on covering administrative costs. The little that was left with the nazim was either spent by him or given out as a favour to a councillor of his own choosing.

Based on a study conducted in Lahore and 17 of the Punjab districts, the seminar was informed that the revamped local body dispensation had actually worked to strengthen the landlords in southern Punjab. Seats reserved for workers and peasants were mostly filled with non-workers and non-peasants to please the powers that be.

The state of the minority councillors was even worse. If ever any of them tried to raise his voice or demand a debate over an issue, he or she was conveniently outvoted and forced to shut up. If this is indeed how the current system has worked, then it has been a case more of devolution of attitudes, as opposed to that of power, from top down. The one sitting at the top of the pyramid, the president in this case, is the only one who has any and all power.

Here’s what happens when the president chooses to devolve those of his powers that he considers a burden: the second person in charge, the PM, to be precise, gets his taste of some of the discarded powers. And so it continues down the line, to federal ministers, the CMs and their cabinets until it dilutes down to the nazims, who lie at the last tier, exercising the dregs of the discarded power.

The UC councillors found at the bottom of the pyramid merely act as unwilling minions doing practically nothing but drawing an honorarium, a respectable name for a paltry monthly sum flung their way. The only ones over whom the councillors have an edge are the hapless public.

No wonder, then, that civic services have remained in a shambles, not to speak of the overall governance guided by ‘enlightened moderation.’

PAKISTAN Railway has come out with yet another profit-making scheme. It placed advertisements in the national newspapers on Friday, inviting bids from private parties to operate trains. Interested parties, the PR ad says, will be allowed to use the existing railway infrastructure, but will have to purchase the running inventory, including locomotives, freight and passenger carriages.

The move is obviously aimed at bridging the gap that exists between the PR’s income and its expenditure, and to collect the windfall, if the scheme succeeds. The shortfall in the outgoing fiscal year has been estimated to be higher than Rs838 million, with the passenger train operations running in a bigger deficit than the freight business. This is despite the fact that the PR has upwardly revised its fares and tariffs considerably.

The railway’s desperation in trying to better its finances can be judged by the latest scandal involving a senior officer’s transfer to Karachi. The officer in question had reportedly found that the material being procured by the railway to construct the Khokhrapar-Munabao track was of substandard quality. The bid had gone to a Lahore-based party, which had offered to sell the material at a cost lower than that quoted by others; but there remained allegations of some officials and politicians getting kickbacks from the deal.

As for the invitation now to the private sector to enter the hitherto exclusive domain of rail operations, it is a welcome move. This is better than leasing or selling off railway assets such as the golf club in Lahore and the railway club in Karachi, or further commercializing railway land as has been reportedly planned in the case of Lahore’s Mayo Gardens. While the clubs have long gone where they had to go, the PR must dispense with its plans to alter the status and the environment of the Mayo Gardens.

LAHORE police have reportedly launched community policing in four areas of the city. These include the Urdu Bazaar, the Cantonment, Model Town and the Moon Market in Allama Iqbal Town. It is too early to say as to how the system will work, because the Punjab Police have largely kept the details to themselves. Initial reports suggest that local notables and communities in their respective areas are being involved in the running of the new system.

Crime of every category in the city has been one major problem evading a solution. The past ten days or so have seen the horror unleashed by apparently an unidentified gang on the innocent homeless sleeping on green-belts and in open spaces. So far, six people have been hit and killed, with their heads smashed by a heavy object, an axe or a building block, in their sleep.

Such fiendish crime, unfortunately, is not new to Lahore. A news report in a section of the English-language press, insensitive as it may be termed, dwelled on trivia emerging in this area since the 1950s. This latest brutality, which it termed as serial killing, it said, was the seventh in line since then. So here we are, if abject poverty is not killing the poor, it is some sick hoodlum who does the job.

The sheer number of the homeless that could now be spotted sleeping at the shrines and in open spaces around Lahore at night is disturbing. Most of these people are young men who come to town as daily wagers and earn barely enough to feed themselves, and then perhaps take a few rupees home at the weekend for their families. They cannot afford the luxury of a shelter and sleep under the open sky in most cases.

One hopes that the experiment with community policing succeeds and helps make this city a safer place for both those who have a home and those who don’t.

FIRST there was this outlandish report from the Punjab University’s Punjabi department that all those enrolled in the master’s programme had to take a compulsory 100-mark paper in Arabic. As if that were not enough, now those wishing to acquire a post-graduate degree in Punjabi will also have to study Pashto, Sindhi and Balochi from next academic year. This is sheer madness and speaks of a sick mind at work behind the crazy scheme of things as they are.

But the madness does not stop here. You can take a trip down to The Oriental College, once that proud repository of the university’s language-teaching heritage, and see the principal’s obsession with Arabic. The ‘official’ language at the college is definitely Arabic and not one of the recognized sarkariones, with all departments’ and offices’ signboards now having been redone in that language. Is there no one to rein in this Don Quixote of our time? — OBSERVER