DESPITE the authorities’ promises to get tough on perpetrators, there appears to be no let-up in the street crime epidemic that afflicts Karachi. Over the last few weeks there have been heart-breaking stories of promising young students gunned down for resisting armed muggers, people shot while out shopping, and shopkeepers attacked by armed thugs. In fact, the conventional wisdom in this forsaken city is to immediately hand over your valuables to criminals and offer no resistance. According to CPLC figures, there were around 85,000 cases of street crime reported last year in the city. Add up the number of unreported cases and the figures are frightful, indicating that every single day of the year hundreds of people in Karachi are deprived of either their cash, mobiles, vehicles or their lives. The solutions offered by the powers that be are mostly tried, tested and failed. For example, during last week’s apex committee meeting there were promises to crack down on street crime, while later the chief minister called upon specialised police units to join the fight against violent crime, while the Sindh police chief asked people to install CCTV cameras outside their homes.

Clichéd as it may sound, out-of-the-box solutions are needed for a police force of a few thousand to protect a sprawling city of millions, as the typical methods have failed to deliver. During the apex committee meeting it was mentioned that over 1,600 criminals who had committed street robberies multiple times were bailed out between a week to six months of their arrest. Officials said a law is being considered to prevent repeat offenders from returning to the streets. Such efforts need to be sped up, while easy access to illegal weapons must be curtailed; these are amongst the many ways to crack down on crime. Moreover, those black sheep within the police department that patronise crime must be weeded out, and the police force reimagined along modern lines in order to bring a semblance of normality to Karachi’s streets.

Published in Dawn, January 10th, 2023