Mobile phone snatchings in Karachi on the rise in 2017, report

Mobile phone snatching surged in Karachi in the year 2017.

A report released by Karachi police says that there has been a rise in the number of mobile phones snatching and theft in the last year. In 2017, 16,232 mobile phones were snatched at gunpoint as compared to 16,069 in 2016. This is a 1.01pc increase in the range of street crimes related to mobile snatching.

According to the report published by Dawn, the current operation in Karachi had left a reduced effect of major crimes i.e target killing, terrorism (blasts), kidnapping for ransom and extortion.

As stated in the report, Additional Inspector General (AIG) Police Karachi Mushtaq Ahmed Mahar identified that the situation of law and order has been improved in Karachi. Police have expanded their patrolling and have to install high tech CCTV cameras to limit over the street crimes.

The city police chief believes that a large number of street crimes are executed in the traffic jams between 5 pm to 11 pm.

The Citizens-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) has developed a website for Pakistani citizens to recover their stolen/snatched phones.

These statistics suggest that the mobile phone snatching continues to be a big issue for the residents of Karachi. Now it is on the government to take enough measures to counter street crimes in one of the densely populated cities of Pakistan.

See also: PTA to launch a system to block snatched and smuggled mobile phones