KARACHI: Robbers broke locks of at least 24 shops in the old city area of Jubilee Market on late Saturday night and took away only cash, Garden police and a traders’ body officials said.

“Thieves mainly took away cash whatever was available in the shops and did not take away clothes or blankets in the shops,” said City-SSP Fida Hussain.

The officer said he talked to the president of the Jubilee Market association, Abdul Ghani Memon, who said that the goods were not taken while the cash taken away could not be determined.

“Locks of both main gates of the market are intact,” added the senior police officer. It gave rise to the suspicion that someone inside might be involved in the criminal act, SSP Hussain added.

He said a watchman of the market had recently been hired who was taken into custody for interrogation.

Chairman of All Karachi Tajir Ittehad Atiq Mir told Dawn that for the last three years, this trend of looting whole markets had emerged in the metropolis.

Initially, the markets in Jama Cloth were looted followed by looting of jewellery markets, toy shops, etc, in the old city area.

Mainly old markets have been looted partly because there are no security cameras installed in such markets.

“Incidents of extortion, robberies and other crimes might have reduced in the metropolis recently due to the operation, but such theft cases in old markets have registered an increase,” Mr Mir said.

He urged the traders of such markets to install closed-circuit television cameras and called for patrolling in the same areas by police to curb such incidents.

Published in Dawn, December 7th, 2015