RAWALPINDI: The City Traffic Police (CTP) rounded up 1,386 beggars in a grand operation launched against professional beggars in November.

The CTP said more than 80pc beggars in the city were professional and 60pc of them were healthy, 20pc disabled and another 20pc drug addicts.

“With the help of citizens, the scourge of begging can be eradicated from society,” a spokesman quoted City Traffic Officer (CTO) Syed Abid Ali Shah as saying.

The spokesman said the Anti-Beggar Squad led by Adeel Abbasi rounded up the beggars from different parts of the city and handed them over to different police stations who registered 24 FIRs under the Vigilance Act.

The beggars hailed from different areas of Punjab, Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Sindh and were begging in the city under an organised mafia.

Though begging is a crime and police claimed to have arrested them, these beggars are still operating in different parts of the city.

Those who bring them to streets in the morning and then picked them up in the evening are not arrested.

The CTO appealed to the citizens to refrain from giving alms to the professional beggars so as to discourage them.

The spokesman said beggars could be seen at almost every traffic signal.

They are being operated by two contractors who get money (commission) from them and in return provide protection to them from police besides arranging pick-and-drop facility to them, he added.

“The operators of the beggars drop them at specific spots in a car and later pick them in the evening,” he said and added: “The mafia is operating internationally as they also travel to Arab countries and back.”

A resident of DHA told Dawn that he was driving to Saddar when he got stuck in a traffic mess at Soan Bridge.

“All of a sudden a woman in black burqa carrying a minor child knocked on the window of my car and asked for money.”

Shortly afterwards, he added, some girls followed the woman and encircled the car. He said traffic police officials were standing not far from them but took no action.

Published in Dawn, December 9th, 2020