SUKKUR: Sindh’s Inspector General of Police (IGP) A.D. Khowaja has said the black custom of karo-kari is neither based on religion nor culture.

Mr Khowaja said at an inauguration ceremony of regional women protection cell late on Thursday evening that police were making renewed efforts for the recovery of Fazila Sarki.

He said that cases of assault on girls had shot up in southern Sindh. Parents should teach their children about how to handle harassment, he said.

“Being Muslim it is our responsibility to protect rights and honour of women but it is sad to see that women are being killed over flimsy pretexts and allegations of karo-kari even in this age and the victims are buried without proper funeral rites,” he said.

He said that police department faced challenges in Shikarpur, Kandhkot and Ghotki districts because of overlapping boundaries on the river and it was causing difficulties in action against criminals. The department had written to the government to construct Ghotki-Kandhkot bridge to help police catch criminals, he said.

The IGP said that 15 to 20 per cent police personnel were engaged in security duties instead of operational work.

Unnecessary security duties would be withdrawn soon, he said.

Sukkur DIG Khadim Rind said that women were harassed routinely in schools, colleges and workplaces but most females did not share their ordeal with family members.

He asked parents to keep an eye on mobile phone sets of their daughters to save them from bad people because nowadays, most girls were being blackmailed through cyber crime.

Published in Dawn, April 14th, 2018