KARACHI has been an easy prey for all who have axes to grind. The list is rather long, and includes individuals, organisations and institutions. Let us take the recent upsurge in street crimes in the city as a case.

The poor residents of Karachi are like New Yorkers, as they have to keep some money and cell phone in their front pockets to ‘appease’ the muggers or else the criminals just lose their calm and go violent.

There have been incidents in which lives have been lost simply because there was nothing the muggers could snatch from the unfortunate victims.

Police can easily control crimes if they want to. Former inspector-general (IG) of Sindh Police A.D. Khawaja was an excellent officer. During his tenure, he had once advised the people to keep licensed weapons to keep criminals away. This idea was not taken seriously by the public, for they were not familiar with the gun culture.

I would recommend that police should form a ‘volunteer force’ comprising members of the public as well as retired personnel of the armed forces to curb street crimes in Karachi.

This is not an unrealistic, impractical idea; it has lot of potential. If selected with proper scrutiny, this volunteer force can be a real threat to street criminals.

Being part of a licensed gun-holder family, I know many people who will support this idea and would like to be a part of this volunteer force.

Kazi Mujtaba
Karachi

Published in Dawn, June 11th, 2021