Mobile snatchers introduce new tricks to mug people in Ramazan

KARACHI: In Ramzan every year, street crime in the city increases by 10 percent to 20 percent and every year snatchers change their ways of robbing people.

According to DIG CIA Dr Jameel, most of the snatchers stop people by asking for any address or simply asking what time it is, following which they rob unassuming people and flee.

This year snatchers have introduced a new method for mugging citizens.

According to DIG CIA, nowadays assailants on motorcycles stop cars by saying to the driver that petrol or water is leaking from their car’s tank. After that, the driver stops his vehicle and the ready-to-strike snatchers rob the whole family sitting in the car.

According to the CPLC in the five months of 2017, 12,371 mobile phones were snatched and stolen. In Jan, 2,622 mobile phones were stolen/ snatched, while 2,329 people lost their mobile phones on gun point.

In March, the graph of snatching did not come down, as 2,436 people were looted. In April, 2,650 mobile phones were snatched, while in May, 2,334 people were mugged.

The snatching trend in Karachi is not going down by the looks of it. According to DIG CIA Dr Jameel, due to Karachi Operation, those criminals who were involved in big crimes such as murder, bank robbery, car snatching etc, now are focusing on street crimes.

DIG CIA added that street criminals focus on traffic jams and they rob people so that police can’t easily intervene and interrupt the criminals. There are also spots where street criminals are quite active. According to other senior police officers, about more than 50 points have been identified as hotspots which include Gulshan-e-Iqbal, Hasan square, Disco Bakery, Aladin Park, Nipa, Dalmia Road Millennium Mall, Baloch Colony Bridge, and many others

The citizens expressed their opinion about street crime, saying that police has identified the spots and that several gangs are busted regularly, but the ratio of street crime is not decreasing.