KARACHI: The country’s financial hub remained gripped with rampant street crime with as many as 66,560 incidents reported in the metropolis from January to November 2024 as per the statistics of Citizens-Police Liaison Committees (CPLC).
With an average of 6,048 crimes were committed a month and 199 a day the total number of street crime incidents in Karachi in 2024 was likely to be 72,578 on the basis of these figures.
However, recent kidnappings within a week in the country’s financial hub have raised alarm bells among the residents even in those areas where crime was not uncommon.
Seven-year-old Mohammed Sarim was allegedly abducted on January 7 from North Karachi Sector 5 within the limits of the Bilal Colony police station.
The young boy had gone to the madrassa, established within their residential area, along with his elder brother but did not return home.
Although a First Information Report (FIR) has been lodged under 364-A (kidnapping or abducting a person under the age of 14) of the Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and ongoing investigation, there has been no significant breakthrough in locating Sarim.
Struck by grief and worry, the seven-year-old’s parents have received a message from an international number demanding ransom from them.
“For the past two days, my wife has been receiving messages stating that if we want the child back, we have to pay Rs500,000,” said Sarim’s father, The News reported on Thursday.
The number, as per the father’s statement on Tuesday, was from a Middle Eastern country.
However, with the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) also joining the investigation, the police have claimed that the number from which the parents received the message belongs to a group from Punjab.
Meanwhile, Sindh Inspector General Police (IGP) Ghulam Nabi Memon has constituted a special unit for missing children, but the case is yet to be transferred there.
Speaking on Sarim’s alleged kidnapping, SSP Central and Bilal Colony SHO have said that no CCTV footage is available which could provide a clue regarding the boy’s disappearance.
Garden incident
Sarim’s alleged abduction was followed by another worrisome incident with two more children — five-year-old Aliyan and six-year-old Ali Raza — going missing while playing outside their homes in the city’s Garden locality.
An FIR has been registered on the complaint of Aliyan mother Zainab, wife of Younis who informed the police that she worked at a gym and found her son missing when she returned home.
When she asked Aliyan father about him, he told her that the boy had gone outside to play. When the boy did not return after some time, she searched for him outside and asked a neighbour to find out that his son Ali had also gone outside to play with Aalian and like Aalian, he had also not returned.
Sindh Chief Minister Murad Ali Shah has taken notice of the incident directing the Karachi Police to immediately recover the children and submit a report.
The chief minister has also ordered an increase in police patrolling in the city while seeking a detailed report about the incident from Karachi Additional IG Javed Alam Odho.
Meanwhile, the CCTV footage of the alleged kidnapping has come to the surface with SHO Garden Muhammad Zubair Nawaz SSP City saying that the police were exploring the route map.
The concerned footage shows two people — a man and a woman — riding on a motorcycle with Aliyan and Ali and the path they took heads towards Lyari.
Noting that they did not have any enmity with anyone nor did they suspect anyone, the children’s father said that since no such act has taken place in their vicinity ever they waited for a while before approaching the police.
