THE residents of the federal capital are deeply troubled by the fact that Islamabad has essentially turned into a hub of organized crime. Almost daily, numerous individuals fall victim to car thefts and street crimes, resulting in the loss of their valuables. To give an idea of what is happening under the very nose of, what is considered to be, an elite and model police force of the country, five citizens lost their vehicles in the jurisdiction of Aabpara police station on May 10 during half an hour of Friday congregations. These vehicles were parked outside different mosques including Lal Masjid and became targets of car-lifters. Similar complaints were also received from different police stations of the capital the same day.
This is not for the first time that a number of people lost their vehicles during Friday prayers as this is happening for long and victims bring this to the notice of the police but its performance remains questionable. Most of the victims complain that police did nothing except demanding of them to fill petrol tanks of (police) vehicles so that they could visit the crime scene and other places of movement of stolen vehicles. Islamabad is thought to be a safe city as an elaborate network of surveillance system is in place but cameras are only used to issue challans to traffic violators. In the event of car-lifting, it turns out either the cameras were non-functional or the concerned staff takes many hours to sift the record facilitating car-lifters to transfer stolen vehicles easily to their favourite locations. Police in other cities tend not to cooperate sans an FIR but victims are not issued copies of FIR for hours and in some cases for days on lame excuses including non-availability of SHO and understandably the delay favours criminals. There are reasons to believe that the organized crimes take place in full connivance of the police, car cell and staff of the safe city project. It is intriguing that despite repeated complaints of car-lifting during Friday prayers, police have taken no step to catch the criminals red-handed. Interior Minister Mohsin Naqvi is remembered for his good governance in Punjab but so far he has not been able to concentrate on elimination of even organized crimes in a small territory. The situation demands a centralized mechanism is evolved for lodging of such complaints on phone and relay of the incident through police communication networks within minutes to nab the culprits instantly.
