KARACHI: Taking notice of growing incidents of street crimes in the metropolis, Inspector General of Sindh Police Ghulam Nabi Memon on Sunday announced that a specialised unit would investigate cases of those mugging in which robbers murdered their victims.

He said that the cases in which robbers wounded their victims would be investigated by the investigating officers (IOs) having ‘good’ reputation in districts.

The officers would be provided with all facilities, according to officials and sources.

They said that 67 IOs had been selected for investigation of ‘important’ violent crimes and each IO was given Rs100,000 as reward initially.

Some 100 people are being killed and 500 wounded in street crime in Karachi every year, meeting told

Out of them, 60 IOs were from districts while seven had been selected from the Special Investigation Unit (SIU).

Any dacoity-cum-murder case would automatically be transferred to the SIU for investigation where the seven IOs would work on it.

Investigation into a violent crime would be ‘reward-based’ and IOs would be given reward during three stages of probe — namely detection, presenting of challan and conviction of a criminal.

The IOs would be provided with vehicles and modern computers with software developed by police for preparing ‘flawless’ cases.

Each IO would be given only one case in a month for investigation.

Judiciary requested for speedy trials

The police authorities decided that violent street crimes would be treated as ‘society cases’ and would be given top priority by investigators.

The sources said that it was likely that the provincial police chief would call on the chief justice of Sindh High Court for speedy trial of street criminals involved in murders and for not granting bail to repeat offenders.

They said that the IGP would request the judiciary for early trial of street criminals involved in murders because such an initiative had also been taken when retired justice Asif Khosa was the chief justice of Pakistan for speedy trial of murderers.

Mr Memon asked the officers that he would assess their performance after three weeks.

He also announced a cash reward for the officer who showed good performance and warned of ‘punishment’ for poor performance.

Additional IGP Karachi Imran Yaqoob Minhas warned the officers, including DIGs and SSPs, to control narcotics within one week in the metropolis otherwise not only junior, but senior officers would also be taken to task, said the sources.

The sources said that the meeting participants were informed that around 100 people had been being killed by robbers and 500 others injured in a year in Karachi.

Meanwhile, the IG asked the officers to visit homes of the citizens killed and injured during robbery resistance and added that he would also personally meet heirs of the victims, according to the statement.

He asked the officers to come on field and show their performance against the crimes.

He admitted that robbery-cum-murder cases were increasing and directed the SHOs and IOs to reach the crime scene.

He also issued directions for a ‘revolving fund’ for investigation.

The IG said Special IOs would be given modern computers and added that in case of conviction of a violent street criminal, SSP would be given Rs500,000 cash reward while IO would be given one basic pay as rewards.

He asked the officers to ascertain as to where the snatched mobile phones and motorcycles were being transported.

He said he would get the ‘conviction and reward policy’ approved by the Sindh government.

The top cop asked the officers not to adopt delaying tactics for registration of FIRs otherwise DSPs, SHOs and duty officers would be suspended.

Additional IGP Imran Yaqoob Minhas told participants that he was head of ‘provincial task force’ and warned them to control drugs within a week otherwise RRF and CTD would carry out raids against narcotics, according to the statement.

Published in Dawn, April 1st, 2024