Police twiddle thumbs as robbers hold Ichhra hostage

Criminals, including a gang of three daring robbers, are holding the residents of Lahore’s commercial hub of Ichhra hostage to fear and insecurity by carrying out at least eight robberies in broad daylight within the short span of three days, with four robberies being conducted in the same area on two consecutive days. Shahid Shami, a wholesaler in Ichhra’s busy Shahdin Scheme locality, told Pakistan Today that he was sitting at his shop on Friday when at around 2pm three robbers riding a Honda CG125 burst into his shop.
“Before I could figure out their motive, two young Urdu-speaking youths aged between 25 and 28 entered my shop carrying handguns. They held my shop assistant and I hostage at gunpoint while their third accomplice, a tall youth, stood guard at the road holding a handgun in each hand. I immediately understood that this was the same gang that had robbed a Utility Store outlet down the street just a day earlier,” he said, adding that the memory of the incident still sent a chill up his spine.
“The gangsters tore through the drawers and grabbed over Rs 100,000. They also took with them my licenced pistol, which I had brought to work the same day after hearing about the Utility Store heist. In fact, finding the pistol angered the robbers and one of them asked the other to shoot me, telling him in Urdu: ‘Iss ne humein marney ka plan banaya hua tha… goli mar iss ko!’ (he had planned to kill us.. shoot him),” said Shahid. He said the robbers later rode off on their bike, “and no one dared stop them”.
An interaction with the residents of Shahdin Scheme, a stronghold of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), revealed that most residents held the Ichhra police responsible for the sudden increase in violent crimes in the area.
“How can three men carry out daring robberies with such impunity? The police are definitely involved in this,” a shopkeeper told Pakistan Today, asking not to be identified by name.
Another resident said there had been a phenomenal increase in robberies in Ichhra, particularly in the Shahdin Scheme and Rehmanpura vicinities. “Mobile snatching was routine but recently roadside robberies have increased to an alarming level. Several cases go unreported because people don’t trust the police,” he said, adding that despite repeated requests to the police, the robbers continued to have a field day.
Another shopkeeper who witnessed the Utility Store robbery told Pakistan Today that the robbers took more than Rs 70,000 as the entire area looked on. “The police reached after 30 minutes of the incident. By that time, we came to know that the same gang had robbed two more shops,” he said, adding that after seeing the daring attitude of the robbers, the people of the area were certain that the police were backing them.
A woman resident of the Gulshan-e-Rehman area was robbed of gold jewellery worth more than Rs 150,000 on Sunday. The residents told Pakistan Today that they suspected the involvement of the same gang. Although the police reluctantly registered cases of most of these incidents, they have taken no visible steps to arrest the gangsters or provide security to the residents.
Ichhra Police Station House Officer Inspector Waqar Gondal told Pakistan Today that they were trying their best to arrest the gang, which had no previous record in the area. “We are trying and will eventually get them. The reckless crime spree of this gang will get them killed for sure,” he said, but remained quiet when asked what measures the police were taking to step up security in the area.
Residents said the police had not increased patrols in the area despite such a large number of robberies and neither had they considered setting up a picket to deter the criminals.
“It seems the police and the government will only come into action when the criminals start killing innocent citizens. It will be too late though! The chief minister needs to get his act together and start delivering on his claims of providing good governance and security to the people,” said the residents.
“The robbers are Urdu-speaking,” said locals, suspecting that the robbers are linked to a Karachi-based political party. Justifying their claims, locals said that they had heard similar kind of incidents of daylight robberies.
Ichhra Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) Muhammad Abid, however, said that police had not found any link between the robbers and any political party yet. He said it looked as if the robbers were residing in one of the hostels located in the Ichhra area. He said police would launch a search operation in all the hostels in order to find clues. He said gangs of robbers were suddenly emerging from out of nowhere, and particularly jobless youngsters were carrying out such kinds of robberies.