FAISALABAD, Sept 5: Thousands of workers associated with the textile industry of Khurrianwala industrial area are suffering at the hands of robbers who are depriving them of their salaries and valuables.

Faisalabad, known as textile capital of Pakistan, has more than one million textile workers and a good number of them works in the Khurrianwala industrial area.

A survey by Dawn has found that robbers set up pickets few yards from police pickets to loot workers. They also torture workers if they fail to obey their orders.

As robbers continue their spree, most policemen deployed to patrol the area stay at local influential people’s outhouses. If people report robbery incidents to patrol police officials, they tell them to go to the area police.

Two days ago, robbers looted two vans going from Faisalabad to Jarranwala - one near Chak 107-GB and the other near Chak 119-GB. Commuters told patrol police officials about the incident, but they told them to go to the area police.

A worker, who wished not to be named, said a 13-member robber gang raped three women of a family in 90-RB Chitti on Aug 21 after the head of the family foiled several robberies on a road near his house. He said scores of workers used to take the road on which Jamat Ali’s house was located. Ali, a retired army man, would open fire whenever he learnt that were present in the area. As a result, robbers had to flee. Annoyed by Ali firing, robbers raped three women of his family, he said.

Zaheer Ashraf, who works at a textile mill, said workers had told police officials about increasing robbery incidents, but they were least concerned about their problems. He said robbers looted workers at a distance of few yards from police pickets.

Police Department statistics show that crime is increasing in the district day by day. In 2005, 21,951 crime cases were reported to police, while this number rose to 25,329 in 2006.

Sadr Police Superintendent Shehzad Akbar said patrol had been increased in the area after growing complaints from people about robberies and added that no robbery incident had been reported for the last one week. He said a strategy would be evolved soon to guard workers against robbers.