ISLAMABAD – The crime ratio showed an upward trend in the year 2010 as over eight hundred cases of car theft, over seven hundreds cases of robbery, dacoity, burglary and theft, near two hundreds cases of kidnapping and over hundred cases of murder were reported to the city’s different police stations.
In 2010, over 851 vehicles were stolen, 786 cases of robbery, dacoity and burglary occurred, 131 people were murdered and 133 cases of attempt of murder and 147 cases of kidnapping were reported to the various police stations. In 2009, at least 638 vehicles were stolen and 634 cases of robbery, dacoity and burglary occurred in the various parts of the city. Likewise 117 people were murdered and 119 cases of kidnapping and 112 cases of attempt of murder were reported to the various police stations in the same year.
In the previous year, 101 fatal accidents and 100 non fetal accidents occurred while in the year 2009 as many as 90 cases of fetal accidents and 82 non fatal accidents occurred. The Sadar Zone including Margalla, Shalimar, Golra and Ternol Police was on the top in car lifting cases in year 2010 as 315 vehicles were stolen or snatched while 245 vehicles were stolen from this zone.
2010 showed no mercy to Sindh’s fauna: The year 2010 was a terrible year for Sindh’s wildlife, which has always remained a lesser priority for the provincial and federal governments, Amar Gurio adds from Karachi.
In February, Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz chief Nawaz Sharif made headlines for killing a protected deer during his visit to northern Sindh to meet with influential landlords of the province. However, Sindh Wildlife Department officials dispelled the news, saying that Ghotki district’s media had spread these rumours after they were refused to conduct Sharif’s interview. Sharif had visited Ghotki on the invitation of Maher Sardars, the family of former chief minister Sardar Ali Muhammad Maher.
During his stay, he visited Khangarh and later went to Taar Waro Shikargah, a private safari park of the Maher family, where the Mahers keep black bucks, nilgais and other protected animals and birds.
Dengue, swine flu, gastro grab headlines: Diseases such as gastroenteritis, dengue and swine flu cases kept making made headlines throughout 2010 in the province of Sindh.
In August, floods in the province displaced around seven million people from their houses.
The survivors reached the relief camps, where gastroenteritis outbreaks, within two weeks, claimed the lives of more than 80 people, majority of them women and children.
The deaths were attributed mainly to unhygienic food, contaminated water and bad sanitary conditions at relief camps. District Kashmore was the worst-affected by gastroenteritis as at least 58 people succumbed to the disease.
Besides gastroenteritis, thousands of people were admitted to private and government hospitals with various skin and stomach diseases caused by the contaminated water. Waterborne diseases and skin infections spread rapidly in relief camps and adjacent villages.
According to Sindh Health Department officials, the camps became conducive for diseases due to severe heat, polluted water supply, swarms of mosquitoes and flies, substandard food and poor hygienic conditions.
In November, the dreaded mosquito-borne dengue fever made headlines. At least 25 deaths from the disease were reported in Sindh throughout the year with 20 of them from Karachi only.
The official data of the health department reveals that 5,850 people majority of them from Karachi were suspected of dengue fever throughout the province while 3,952 people tested positive for the virus.
Following the dengue outbreak, swine flu virus (H1N1) cases have started increasing in the province. The Health Department has contacted federal government and international health agencies for technical support for diagnostics, treatment and protective arrangements against the disease.
