KARACHI: Additional Inspector General Sindh (AIG) Ghulam Qadir Thebo on Tuesday said 119 police officers and personnel have become victims of targeted attacks in Karachi this year alone.
Addressing a press conference at the Central Police Office, Thebo said morale remained high among police personnel despite the obstacles faced by them on a day-to-day basis.
He further stated that a number of people in Karachi were using weapons for illegal activities, adding that the police was continually carrying out raids across the metropolis without any regard for political affiliations of suspected individuals.
AIG Thebo said there were 200,000 foreigners residing in the city with no legal documentation and no records of these individuals were available with the government.
He told reporters that police apprehended two target killers and nine extortionists and 139 weapons were seized from their possession.
The AIG moreover declared that the city’s law and order situation had been improving gradually.
Karachi, the country’s financial capital, is prone to targeted killings — political as well as sectarian — and terrorism. The deterioration in the city’s law and order situation had also been noticed by the Supreme Court which has been hearing a case relating to security in the metropolis.
Just last week, Director General Sindh Rangers Maj-Gen Rizwan Akhter had informed the apex court that around 19,000 shipping containers with weapons had gone missing during the tenure of the former minister for ports and shipping.
Akhtar had moreover claimed that these smuggled weapons were being used by militant and criminal elements in Waziristan, Balochistan and Sindh.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has also scheduled a special cabinet meeting for September 4, aimed at finding a solution to the deteriorating security situation in the provincial capital.
The meeting will be attended by the Sindh chief secretary, provincial chiefs of security as well as the directors general of Rangers, Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and Intelligence Bureau (IB).