Karachi has witnessed a rise in street crime in recent months. Data presented at a high-level security conference last week revealed that street criminals had killed over 250 Karachi residents and injured 1,052 others between 2022 and March 28, 2024.
According to police sources, there has been a significant increase in violent street crimes over the last three years.
On Saturday, Chief Justice Aqeel Ahmed Abbasi of the Sindh High Court directed law enforcement officials to crack down on criminals, handlers, and facilitators to reduce street violence in Karachi and improve security in other regions of the province, notably the riverine area.
The rise in street violence in Sindh’s capital prompted face-to-face confrontations at the Centre on Sunday when the MQM-P condemned the PPP-led provincial government and requested enforcement powers for Rangers across Sindh.
At a news conference, MQM-P officials presented a “charge sheet” against the PPP government and Sindh police, accusing them of “failure and incompetence.” They also urged the federal government to act in the “larger interest of Karachi and its people.”
Earlier, the party had called for an operation against street criminals, threatening to leave the PML-N-led coalition government if the murders of innocent people continued.
In a tweet on social networking site X today, the HRCP stated: “The police reported tens of thousands of street crimes in 2023, resulting in the deaths of more than a hundred individuals, and the first quarter of 2024 followed the same pattern.
The HRCP emphasized that retaliatory vigilantism and increased violence by civilians in response to the crime wave were “not the solution,” and criticized the government’s reluctance to confront rising crime levels as “shocking.”
“The underlying factors such as economic desperation and unemployment need urgent attention as well,” the statement said