KARACHI: The Karachi police have yet to launch a proper probe into on-going targeted killings in the city as investigators have not begun to gather crucial evidence, it emerged on Thursday.
As the death toll in the so-called ethnic violence continues to mount, the role of both wings (operations and investigation) of the police is dismal.
The police have failed to contain the violence or arrest suspects involved in the killings, which have now spread to other parts of the city.
The violence which was confined to Orangi Town and its adjoining areas, including Qasba Colony, soon spread to such parts of the city as Baldia, Site Town, Banaras and North Nazimabad.
The investigation police, supposed to investigate the cases and identify, charge sheet and arrest suspects involved in the killings are yet to properly initiate their work.
At the moment, police are just compiling data of the victims killed in the violence.
Similarly, lists are also being prepared of the accused nominated in the previous acts of targeted killings in the city, sources said. Probably the only progress in a particular case of killings is the acquiring of CCTV footage by the police.
Five persons were killed after a minibus was hijacked by gunmen in Gulberg Town and dumped in Gulshan-i-Iqbal. The spent bullet casings were also found in the minibus, the police said.
However, in the rest of the random killings in the city, especially in Orangi Town, there is no way of gathering this vital piece of evidence, as police, even the operations police, are unable to enter the narrow lanes where firing is taking place.
Sharing his past experience of investigation of these targeted killings, a senior officer said that in such type of cases, FIRs were usually registered against unknown persons since these were random killings and there was no witness to the incident who could identify the accused.
He said that even if there was a witness to such a killing, he would not testify for fear of life.
“Witnesses are hard to find even in a simple murder case; finding a witness to politically motivated targeted killings is almost impossible,” remarked an investigator. He added that even the families of most of the victims were quite fearful and did not want to pursue such cases.
He said almost in all the FIRs unknown suspects were nominated.
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