Although members of business community of the city are being targeted by the criminals but the law enforcers have apparently failed to arrest even a single person out of 51, notified by the intelligence agencies.
Poor law and order situation and killing of two businessmen compelled the business community to record their protest by observing a strike in the city which caused an estimated loss of millions of rupees to the national exchequer. Intelligence agencies issued a list of 51 persons last year who belonged to different political parties and were involved in extortion. Police submitted the list in the Supreme Court of Pakistan when Chief Justice of Pakistan was hearing the case in Karachi in 2011.
All the persons are active workers of different political and religious parties and some of them are involved in heinous crimes. Police have lodged dozen of FIRs against some of the listed persons due to their alleged involvement in kidnapping and killing. Police neither arrested nor investigated even a single of them so far.
According to the list, 19 active workers of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), 15 members of banned Peoples Amman Committee (PAC), 11 members of Sunni Tahreek (ST), 6 of Awami National Party (ANP) and one of Jamat i Islami were involved in extortion .
Sources claimed that three of the listed persons surrendered to the police and got NOC from the concerned authorities. On the other hand, some of the most wanted criminals are also included in the list. Members of banned PAC Abdul Jabbar alias Jeengo, Umair Kachi, Shairaz alias Comrade, Raheem alias Darinda, Naeem alias Chooto, and MQM’s members Kamran, Zahid alias Lamba, Shahid alias Kala while the members of ANP Zubair Khan, yasir alias Qabry and ST’s activists Owais Qadri and Imran Qadri are involved in heinous crimes such as kidnapping, kidnapping for ransom and incidents of targeted killings.
Police could not arrest even a single person out of 51 pointed out by the intelligence agencies in the list. “Our community members are being killed by the extortionists after refusal of paying extortion”, said Ateeq Meer,chairman All Karachi Tajir Ittahad (AKTI), while talking to Pakistan Today. We are facing hurdles not only from criminal elements but also from the personnel of law enforcement agencies ,he added.
