HYDERABAD: Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Tariq Razaq Dharejo has assured the business community of ensuring a crime-free environment in the district. He told businessman and traders to focus on boosting industrial production and better trade activities with the aim of helping government in pulling the country out of the present economic crisis.

He was speaking to members of the Hyderabad Chamber of Commerce and Industry (HCCI) in its office on Tuesday. Hyderabad SSP Amjad Sheikh also spoke.

DIG Dharejo asked the police liaison officer for the HCCI to pay due attention to the issues being faced by the community and resolve them.

He said traders and industrialists should increase their trade activities and promised that he would make Hyderabad a model district insofar as law and order was concerned.

He credited SSP Sheikh with successful handling of criminal activities in the gangs-infested Kandhkot-Kashmore district.

The Hyderabad range police would benefit from the SSP’s expertise as well, he said, and hoped that incidents of mugging and vehicle-lifting would be brought under control. He directed traffic police officials to improve traffic management around trade centres in collaboration with the HCCI to facilitate shopping by customers. He called for scaling up patrolling in such areas.

SSP Sheikh vowed to put in his best to make Hyderabad a model city in terms of law and order.

Earlier, HCCI president Adeel Siddiqui welcomed the DIG and SSP to the chamber and assured them of full cooperation from the business community and their representatives. He highlighted issues related to trade centres and industrial zone, and noted that the city once used to have around 600 big and small industries but now their number had drastically declined.

HCCI chief pointed out that industries were not able to show desired performance for various reasons. If the law and order situation did not improve, performance of the retail sector would also be affected and this would be harmful to the economy, he said.

Mr Siddiqui was of the view that due to government’s flawed policies, textile, glass bangle and motorcycle assembling industries were facing a decline in their businesses. He said Hyderabad-based wholesale markets served as a ‘supply chain’ for Sindh’s all other markets and bazaars. He said agro-based industries and retail sector also existed in this city.

The HCCI president said that the Sindh Police had respect for business community members, but the latter were facing unabated mugging. He suggested collective efforts by the police, civil society and business community to ensure an improvement in the situation.

He urged businessmen and traders to install CCTV cameras at their offices and outlets to help police control crime. He drew the attention of police officers to the issues of Medicine Market, Resham Bazaar and Cloth Market in the city and called for resolving them.

HCCI patron in-chief Mohammad Ikram Rajput acknowledged DIG Tariq Dharejo commendable role in eliminating terrorists during the infamous attack on Chinese consulate in Karachi.

HCCI vice president Najmuddin Qureshi drew the DIG attention to the under-construction Sha-heed Benazir flyover, and said that the ongoing work was causing traffic jam in the Fruit & Vegetable Market. He said traffic police should be deployed there to regulate movement of vehicles. He said foolproof security at the market was also needed as traders from across Sindh used to visit it daily with big amounts of money.Published in Dawn, September 27th, 2023