Despite the Islamabad Police’s tall claims about controlling car theft in the city, car lifting cases are on the rise. The police seemed helpless before the car lifting mafia who took away 50 vehicles in January alone. According to the information collected by Pakistan Today 35 cars were stolen from various areas of the city; 8 were snatched at gun point. It is worth mentioning that these numbers represent the cases registered with the police, who usually avoid registering car theft cases.
Car lifters operate in every corner of the city, lifting cars from all the 14 police precincts of the city.
Two cars were lifted from the RAMNA police precincts, three were lifted form Margalla police precincts, four from Industrial Area and Shahzad Town each, one from Abpara police precincts and two from Sihala.
While talking with senior police officers, Pakistan Today observed that car jacking and other crimes could not be controlled until the Station House Officers were not appointed on merit.
Inspector Qasim Niazi, Gulam Muhammad Baqir, Rukhsar Mehdi, Fayaz Tanoli, Fazl-ur Rehman, Hussain Lasi, Inspector Mehboob and Inspector Arshad Mahmood are considered to be close to influential people and are said to have used their connections to get appointed to the SHO posts.
Police sources said in some cases the Islamabad police officials seemed helpless before the Interior Ministry’s influence. The sources added that the police could not change SHO Sihala, SHO Shahzad Town, SHO Koral and SHO Bharakau without the consent of property tycoons as land disputes were prevalent in these areas. The officers stated that former IGP Islamabad Wajid Durrani introduced a system for appointing SHOs after the candidates took written tests and interviews, but the mechanism also fell victim to political influence. The sources said there were 30 eligible officers waiting to be appointed as SHO, but since they could not exert any political clout, they had been over-looked. It is relevant to note here that Islamabad Police Inspector Khalid Mahmood who stood first out of 1300 police officers in the United mission’s test and stood second position in an IGP test, was recently ‘transferred’ to the Security Division but not given any post in the operation wing.
