KARACHI – “You give them the money or not, I am going to give it,” said a vendor to another, who was seemingly reluctant on dishing out cash to the waiting policemen.
When asked who was asking for what, one of the vendors, pointing towards at least three police officers sitting inside a nearly-parked van, told this scribe that they were collecting bhatta from the small businessmen.
On a visit to the Jinnah Bridge – a scenic network of roads at the end of the MA Jinnah Road that has become a picnic and worshipping point for the violence-hit residents of Karachi for quite sometime – the law enforcers of the police department were seen collecting bhatta (extortion) from the poor vendors, who earn their livelihood from dawn till dusk at the frequently-visited bridge.
Many unemployed but business-minded people, most of them aged below 20s or in their 60s, earn their livelihood along the footpath of the bridge by selling popcorn, ice cream, flour dough, discarded meat shards, etc to picnickers and worshipers.
While consulting each other on whether or not the money should be paid, one of the vendors complains that the policemen extort money on daily basis ranging between 20 and 50 rupees depending on how big the business is.
“You tell me brother, I make only Rs 100 profit a day, and if I give Rs 50 to them (police), what would I be left with to run my kitchen,” he told this scribe.
“If we don’t pay the money, they would not allow us to keep our pushcarts here,” the poor vendor added.
Asked on which grounds the so-called protectors of law were asking for money, a vendor retorted: “They say they buy fuel from the money for patrolling the area in mobiles.”
The answer reminded this scribe of a recent visit to the Jackson police station where a police officer claimed that the entire South Zone was short on fuel. “We don’t have fuel for patrolling the area and depend on sincere people for doing so,” the officer had told Pakistan Today.
The vendor went on to say that a sort of tussle had erupted between two police parties on extortion of money.
“Earlier, one of the police officers used to collect money from us. Then this mobile arrived on the scene and asked us not to pay anyone other than themselves,” he said, adding ‘the former extortionist used to say that the collected money is used for buying dinner for bare sahab (senior officer) at the Jackson police station.’
It was later revealed that the policeman used to spend a fraction of the hundreds of rupees collected on buying food for his boss, he added.
“The policemen of this mobile have made him flee now and collect the bhatta themselves,” the vendor said.
After divulging all the details, the vendors surprisingly went to the policemen standing nearby and handed out the money. The police van moved and accelerated away from the scene.
“They call themselves as people’s protectors but you would see them disappearing within seconds from the spot as soon as a crime takes place,” criticised a young vendor.
Karachiites keep the Jinnah Bridge, located right at the heart of the scenic Karachi Port in Keamari, congested almost round-the-clock and visitors can be seen thronging the area before and after sunset.
Most of the visitors are families that can be seen dropping kneaded flour balls into the sea to feed fish and throwing meat remnants to the kites.
The visitors provide some poor male and female youngsters with the opportunity to earn for their families by selling a plate of flour and meat shards at Rs 10.
Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza is said to have embarked upon a serious campaign to overhaul the provincial policing system, commonly refereed as the ‘root of all wrongs,’ but the masses can only wait to see if the minister practices his rhetoric.
