KARACHI: The police suspect that a gang of miscreants who wear burqas and, impersonating as women, carry on their nefarious activities, is busy in the city. Some of them, it is understood, are burglars who, disguised as woman-beggars, enter houses during the day and select their victims. They familiarise themselves with the situation and make use of it in their job of house-breaking and committing theft at night. Others do the job of child-lifting and relieving children of any jewellery on [their] person[s]. Some are pickpockets who find their victims among women travelling in … buses, trams and the crowded city thoroughfares. — Staff reporter

[Meanwhile, as reported by a staff correspondent in Karachi,] addressing the first Pakistan’s Tripartite Cotton Textile Confere­nce, the Minister for Industries, Chaudhri Nazir Ahmad Khan, said … that … the development of textiles industry was “not at all satisfactory”… . He said that as against the development targets of 10 million spindles and 16,878 looms during the first five years, only 1,02,000 spindles and 800 looms had been installed in three years’ time.

Published in Dawn, July 25th, 2025