KARACHI: More than 25 shops in a Lines Area market were burgled on Tuesday, triggering a protest by traders who blocked the main road and chanted slogans against the police, officials said.

They said the traders of old Shahabuddin Market who were relocated to a temporary market constructed in Lines Area along main Preedy Street, found the locks of their shops broken when they came there for their regular business on Tuesday morning.

This was the seventh such incident over the past year, as previously shops near Tibet Centre, Empress Market, Urdu Bazaar, Pakistan Bazaar and Iqbal Market in Orangi Town, Supermarket in Liaquatabad and other neighbourhoods of the city had been struck by thieves.

“The evidence we collected suggests that some four to five thieves entered the market in the middle of the night,” said the area’s sub-divisional police officer, DSP Farhat Kamal. “They first overpowered the two watchmen and after beating them badly, they bound their hands and legs with pieces of rope. Then one by one they broke open the locks of the shops. They took at least an hour to complete the job in a total of 27 shops.”

The traders, however, mainly blamed the police and said street crime and other criminal incidents in the area had become routine and despite several requests to the authorities concerned, they never paid any heed to setting up a permanent checkpoint in the vicinity.

“Only a few months ago a similar incident was reported in Empress Market, Tibet Centre and other markets of this district,” said Anwar Azeem, a shopkeeper who claimed to have lost more than Rs200,000 in the latest incident of market theft. “But it’s so unfortunate that the police have learned nothing. They kept claiming arrest of suspects of previous thefts but crime continues unabated. The police have failed in doing their job.”

The angry traders with a large number of area people gathered at the main Preedy Street and blocked the key link. They chanted slogans against the police and burnt tyres on the main road. But the situation was normalised when the police intervened and talked to their “elders” seeking cooperation to help resolve the issue.

“We are in the process of drawing sketches of the suspects with the watchmen’s help. We are very much hopeful and believe that sooner or later, they would be arrested,” said DSP Kamal.

Published in Dawn, April 5th, 2017