KARACHI: Police have identified 35 blind spots across the city that appear to have eluded the proverbial long arm of law for long as incidents of mobile snatching have shown no let-up at these spots despite two years of the ‘targeted operation’ in the metropolis.

Police are now working on a plan for 24-hour surveillance of such spots through CCTV cameras and deployment of armed personnel to be managed by public-private partnership, it emerged on Sunday.

A recent study conducted by Karachi police through the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) identified the 35 spots where street crime had witnessed no decline.

“These spots include traffic intersections, service roads and busy thoroughfares,” said an official while citing the report, which relied on complaints about street crime registered by police. “The 35 areas are located in all districts but most of them fall within east and south districts,” he said.

Karachi police chief Mushtaq Ali Maher confirmed to Dawn the existence of such spots but assured that the law-enforcement agency had an effective plan in place to meet the challenge. For that, he said, police were focusing more on technological support to enhance regular policing and investigation.

“We are well aware of policing challenges in the city and for that a comprehensive strategy is being devised to fight every type of crime,” he said.

“We have limited resources and not enough personnel to cover the teeming city of 19 million people. So we are focusing on technological support and for that we are looking for cooperation from different segments of society,” he said.

He referred to a recently-signed memorandum of understanding (MoU) between Karachi police and Voice of Karachi, a civil society organisation, under which the two had installed cameras and set up control rooms along with response teams equipped with motorbikes at Punjab Chowrangi, formerly the Submarine roundabout traffic intersection.

“This idea can benefit Karachiites as the people and police of this city will engage with one another for better policing and law-enforcement. On the one hand, it supplements police by adding technological value to our work and on the other it builds people’s trust in police,” explained the police chief.

The Karachi police have planned to establish kiosks at 60 places, each to be equipped with CCTV cameras to keep an eye on street crime. Each kiosk is estimated to cost up to Rs5 million.

The plan envisages installation of at least 16 CCTV cameras, with two motorcycle mounted squads of police who will perform duty round the clock, especially during peak hours.

“It’s an impression that despite visible cut in incidents of terrorism and targeted killings, there has been no major decline in street crimes, which is true to a large extent,” said a senior police officer, who was part of the Karachi police-CPLC study project.

“The data confirms the impression as it shows 17,000 mobile phones were either snatched or stolen in 2014 from January to July while in the corresponding period this year, the figure of the mobile phones stands at 22,000 which were either snatched or stolen from different parts of the city,” he said.

Published in Dawn, October 26th, 2015

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