RAWALPINDI: Around 469 people were either murdered or faced attempts on their lives in the Rawalpindi district so far this year.

A statistical review of the reported crimes between January 1 and May 15 showed the police tried its best to keep the figures of heinous offences at par with that of last year.

According to data collected by Dawn, about 88 people were murdered - six of them during robberies - and another 371 were subjected to murder attempts compared to 86 murders and 333 attempted murder/hurt cases in the same period of 2017.

Between Jan 1 and May 15, at least 88 people were murdered and 371 others survived attempts on their lives

Other crimes in the same period were even shocking as people lost their property worth millions of rupees in 269 robberies, 210 burglaries and 195 thefts compared to 191 robberies, 173 burglaries and 213 theft cases last year.

About 324 motorcycles were either stolen or snatched at gunpoint in addition to 61 other vehicles taken away by automobile thieves compared to the 217 motorcycles snatched/stolen last year. However, the motorcar theft decreased from 241 in 2017 to 184 this year.

“Criminals are lurking around and striking at will,” said a citizen who recently fell victim to a street crime in Morgah.

About 69 citizens were kidnapped in addition to 197 women abduction, 24 rape and one gang rape cases. During the five months of 2017, as many as 45 citizens were kidnapped in addition to 159 cases of women abduction and 25 rape and one gang rape cases.

The sexual abuse of children almost doubled from 19 cases last year to 34 so far this year. A considerable decrease was noticed in the recovery of stolen goods as it dropped to seven from 20 cases last year.

In Commercial Market of Satellite Town, Sadiqabad and Saddar, purse and mobile phone snatching has become a routine.

“Police patrol has been an effective way to detect suspects and check street crime but due to limited resources and lack of interest on part of senior police officers, the police have been unable to patrol the city properly. As a result, incidents of robbery, purse snatching, vehicle snatching and other crimes are going up,” said a senior police official.

Two people were shot dead inside the new judicial complex on March 28.

The Supreme Court of Pakistan took suo motu notice of the incident. As per routine, the Punjab police chief passed on instructions to divisional police chiefs to strengthen security of all the judicial complexes and judges to avoid any such incident.

The incident led to the transfer of the then city police officer (CPO) Israr Ahmed Abbasi though he was later awarded with another lucrative post of SSP Punjab Highway Patrol Rawalpindi region.

SSP Afzal Kasur after assuming the charge of the CPO shared some policing powers with the SSP operations whose prime duty is to check street crime.

Despite all this, the police have been unable to arrest the accused involved in the judicial complex incident and their facilitators.

The performance of Rawalpindi police has been described as “dismal” since long in arresting proclaimed offenders whose number is probably increasing.

According to sources, the local police came under scathing criticism by the inspector general of the Punjab police at a recent regional police officers’ conference.

The IGP directed the district police heads to improve their media management.

Published in Dawn, May 19th, 2018