KARACHI, Dec 9: Bandits have lately taken to snatching hand phones at gunpoint in the city, and mobile phone subscribers feel insecure because of the rising incidence of this crime.

After the lucrative business of car hijacking, theft/snatching of hand phones has attracted bandits as it is easier to get away with than a vehicle. So far, in the majority of cases, police have been unable to trace snatched/ stolen hand phones even if the incidents were reported promptly.

Moreover, hand phones can easily be sold off in the secondhand cell phone markets which have emerged at various places in the city. These markets are functioning unchecked.

Police and the city administration have taken up the matter of these markets lightly which has encouraged those involved in selling and buying hand phones at cheaper prices, but illegally.

The cases of snatching/theft of hand phones are rising by the day. Mostly businesspersons, executives and salesmen carry hand phones and they are the main target of the new breed of innovative bandits.

However, an accurate figure of hand phone theft/snatching is not possible to ascertain as most of the victims do not lodge complaints in police station, because they do not expect the recovery of their stolen or snatched hand phones.

In November police registered cases of robbery/theft of only 56 mobile phones in the city.

Out of these 56 sets, 16 were taken away from Gulistan-i-Jauhar in a robbery at a hand phone shop, a police official said.

The magnitude of the crime can be gauged from the fact that now police have coined a new term, “mobile phone thief.”

One such thief was arrested by the Crime Branch police recently in Saddar. One pistol and nine hand phones sets were recovered from his possession.

During interrogation, he confessed to stealing or snatching more than 100 hand phones and selling them off in the market.

The electronics market on Abdullah Haroon Road in Saddar has become a major centre of the trade in mobile phones, especially secondhand or used hand phones.

A used hand phone could be bought for Rs2,500-Rs5,000 or more, depending on model and make, whereas the price of a new hand phone ranges between Rs5,000 to Rs16,000, said a shopkeeper at the electronics market.

A man lodged an FIR in a police station stating that he had placed his hand phone on a table in an eating-house, a young man appeared there and requested that if he could drink a glass of water. After drinking water the young man picked up the hand phone, ran away with it and vanished into some dark alley before the complainant could realize what had happened.

A motorcyclist was waiting at the traffic signal in Sohrab Goth, when two men, riding on a motorcycle, stopped beside him, and took away his hand phone at gunpoint.

Incidents of hand phone snatching at gunpoint have also been reported on the main the I.I. Chundrigar Road, especially in areas close to the PIDC House, Dawood Centre and Progressive Plaza.

Such incidents also took place outside office complexes at Nursery in PECHS, Clifton and other such places, a police official told this reporter.

“Of course, cash is also looted in such robberies, along with hand phones,” he added.

Several such cases have also been reported during night, especially in district South in which pedestrians have been robbed of their mobile phones and cash by armed youths riding on motorcycles.

Often people refrain from registering FIR about hand phone robbery and theft, fearing hassle in police station.

After stealing a hand phone the thief only has to take out the sim card of the set to get rid of the old number. This kills all chances of the poor owner locating his stolen hand phone.

Rarely has a misplaced or lost phone returned to the rightful owner.

Often people lose their hand phones by simply forgetting after putting it at public places. Such hand phones end up in mobile phone shops at the electronics market.

Anyone can easily dispose of any set in the market and get a fair price for it.

A shopkeeper said: “We have no means to verify that a hand phone is not a stolen one. However, we buy used hand phones on condition that they are not stolen.”

“People from all walks of life come and sell off their sets to us and, in most cases, buy another set. It is humanly impossible to ascertain whether a hand phone is stolen or not,” another shopkeeper said.

The electronics market on Abdullah Haroon Road is flooded with hand phone sets, both new and used.

Several new cell phone outlets have come up in the city, but such shops attract far fewer customers as the electronics market does.

Till June this year Karachi had 439,000 mobile phone subscribers. The breakup is as follows: 270,000 Mobilink subscribers, 85,000 Instaphone, 50,000 Paktel and 34,000 Ufone.

So hand phone thieves have a lot of potential targets to look for.