KARACHI: In a fourth such incident of burglary in markets in South district within a month, shutters of around 23 shops in a market on M. A. Jinnah Road were broken with cutters and around Rs9 million was looted from them on Thursday, police and shopkeepers said.

Around four suspects arrived at Jami Centre, a wholesale market of blankets near Kausar Medicos, within the remit of the Aram Bagh police station, trussed its watchman Salman and broke open the shutters of the shops with cutters.

“They looted at least 23 shops and took away Rs9 million cash,” said chairman of the All Karachi Tajir Ittehad Atiq Mir.

The head of the traders’ body said that this was the fourth such incident of theft in markets in district South in the past one month. Earlier, markets in Urdu Bazaar and Bohri Bazaar in Saddar and Tibet Centre were looted. Mr Mir pointed out that so far 100 shops had been looted in different markets.

“The modus operandi of the criminals appeared to be the same in all these robberies in the bazaars, indicating involvement of a same group,” the shopkeepers’ leader said.

“There could be only one reason behind such incidents: either the police were incompetent or they were involved in these thefts,” the traders’ leader claimed.

He said that the growing number of robberies in markets had created a sense of anxiety and insecurity in shopkeepers.

Mr Mir warned that if the culprits involved in the Jami Centre robbery were not arrested and future security planning to prevent such incidents was not made, the shopkeepers would be compelled to stage a sit-in on main M.A. Jinnah Road.

South SSP Saqib Ismail Memon told Dawn that a watchman had been taken into custody for interrogation.

He said the closed-circuit television cameras installed in the market did not corroborate the statement of the held watchman.

The SSP said that the watchman claimed that four thieves tied him up and fled after looting the shops but the CCTV camera did not show exit of the thieves from the market.

Replying to a question about three other theft incidents in markets, the SSP said that the police had traced earlier market looting cases and arrested several suspects.

He added that the main reason behind such incidents appeared to be ‘weak security mechanism’ in the bazaars.

He said the markets had hired watchmen who appeared to be untrained and unarmed.

Meanwhile, IG Police, Sindh, A. D. Khowaja took notice of the massive robbery in Jami Centre and directed the DIG South to submit a detailed report about it.

The provincial police chief also issued directions to zonal DIGs to submit a detailed report about street crimes in their respective areas.

The report should contain details of arrest of suspects and progress on the cases so far. He asked the SSPs of all the districts to hold meetings with representatives of markets and carry out consultation with them to end such incidents after closure of markets in nights.

Published in Dawn, October 28th, 2016