Lawlessness is spreading a sense of insecurity among Islamabad’s citizens, as over 480 vehicles including motorcycles have been stolen or snatched across the city in spite of tall claims made by the police about effective plans for curbing the growing car lifting incidents in the federal capital.
As in the past, most of the vehicles stolen this year were in the limits of police stations located in urban areas of the city. The jurisdiction of six police stations including Margalla, Shalimar, I-9, Kohsar, Aabpara and Sabzi Mandi were on top as compared to the other police stations.
This year, 115 vehicles were stolen from the limits of Margalla Police Station, 106 from Shalimar Police Station limits, 76 from Industrial area Police Station limits, 49 from Kohsar Police Station limits, 41 from the limits of Sabzi Mandi Police Station, 30 from the limits of Shehzad Town Police Station, 18 from Aabpara Police Station limits, 15 from Koral Police Station limits, Eight from Sihala Police Station limits, 10 from the limits of Golra Police Station, and six each from the Tarnol and Secretariat Police Station limits, a police source said while talking to Pakistan Today.
He said that carjacking would further increase in the city as the big wigs of the police only concentrated on the security of VIPs and had turned a deaf ear to this serious issue. “The occurrence of such a huge number of car lifting incidents in the city’s urban areas shows that vehicles are lifted with the connivance of the police”, he said.
He said that several organised car-lifting gangs were operating in the city but the city police was helpless and made no arrests. “Car-lifters have also invented a jammer which jams tracking systems installed in vehicles”, he said said. Police sources said rising car theft incidents would be controlled when the Islamabad police would appoint skilful people in the Anti Car-Lifting Cell (ACLC) of the capital police and equip them with modern technology, they said.
The source said that the stolen vehicles were either resold to innocent buyers or used for illegal activity. “Stolen vehicles are mostly used to facilitate heinous crimes like murder, robbery, dacoity, kidnapping, drug trafficking etc,” he said.
Source said that around three cases of car lifting occur daily in the capital city. “Lack of coordination between the capital police and provincial police department and poor security at the city’s entry and exit points are the main reasons for car lifting”, the source said. “The menace of car lifting could be controlled easily when provincial police departments start active coordination with the capital police”, he said.
