On the mean streets of Pakistan's biggest city, crime-weary citizens fed up with a wave of kidnappings look to a private crime fighting unit for help. The unit, run by businessman Sharfuddin Memon, is trying to bridge the gulf that all too often exists between the police and those they're meant to serve in a country where people shy away from reporting crimes to regular law enforcement officials due to their reputation for corruption.
"We are not there to confront the police. We are there to support them and the victims," Memon, head of the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC), told Reuters in an interview at his headquarters in Karachi.
"We have played a major role in not only controlling the crime situation in the city but also building the confidence of the people in the police," said Memon, sitting behind a tidy desk upon which five telephones constantly rang off the hook.
"I'm proud that people have confidence in us and come to us with their problems. We are in the loop between them and the police," said Memon, smartly dressed in a shirt and tie, wearing glasses and sporting a neatly trimmed beard.
Kidnapping, extortion and domestic violence against women are the most common crimes with which Memon and his team contend.
Since taking over as CPLC chief, Memon has faced death threats from vengeful criminals that have made him always travel with police guards. But despite the dangers Memon, who is in his late 40s and has barely had time for his family or his construction business since taking over as CPLC chief, said he is addicted to fighting crime.
"When I say addiction I mean enjoying the high of helping out people and bringing down criminals. It gives you an enjoyment and self-satisfaction which is unavailable in any other line of work," he said.
His private police unit has been very successful at solving kidnappings and has a 70 percent success rate, Memon said. Families whose relatives were kidnapped often turn to Memon's citizens police unit for help rather than the regular police.
The CPLC informs the police of the kidnapping and helps the victim's family by setting up phone tracking and voice recognition devices to locate the kidnappers during the ransom negotiations.
"The most difficult cases are where there is a personal enmity, business rivalry. There we have to be careful as money is not the issue and the victim's life is in jeopardy," Memon said.
His organisation has dealt with 408 kidnapping cases in the last 15 years and solved 284 of them. It's been responsible for breaking up 138 gangs, whose members were arrested.
"We have developed a certain expertise in dealing with kidnapping and extortion cases," Memon said. One prominent Karachi businessman said Memon's help was invaluable when his son was kidnapped and held for two months earlier this year.
"These people are professionals and clean and it was only because of their support that we managed to survive those terrible moments," the businessman, who declined to be named, said of his ordeal. In another case, the CPLC worked with Interpol in the kidnapping of the 31-year-old son of a local businessmen.
The masterminds of the crime were traced to Manchester in Britain from where they had hired a local gang in Karachi to take the businessman's son hostage. "The victim was recovered in Karachi," said Memon. "We got a lot of help from Interpol. But it was very satisfying to resolve the case."
Karachi is Pakistan's sprawling commercial and industrial hub. Home to 12 million people, the city has to deal with vicious sectarian and Islamic militant violence as well as a recent surge in street crime.
In 2002, US reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped by Islamists and beheaded while investigating a story in Karachi. In the last 12 years, 4,721 people have been killed in militant violence, according to CPLC figures. Petty crime is also rife. In the past 12 months, 50,478 mobile telephones were stolen, many snatched from people as they were chatting outdoors.
Jahangir Mirza, chief of police in Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, said there were various reasons behind the surge in crime that his men were struggling to contain.
"Our police have their limitations and many times we lack manpower and modern equipment. But we still try to do our best," Miraz said. He said the CPLC had helped in many cases, particularly when people were reluctant to deal directly with the police. The CPLC was formed in 1989 by a group of businessmen and the provincial governor, exasperated over rising crime.
Initially based on the neighbourhood watch community policing programme in Britain, the CPLC now has a much wider mandate and functions independently by employing a staff of volunteers and a handful of policeman. Its switchboard takes about 1,500 distress calls a day.
The group, which is largely funded by private donations, faces a constant struggle to keep up with the criminals. "Criminals nowadays are very smart and they are always coming up with new ideas. But we contend with it by developing modern crime fighting techniques and surveillance equipment," Memon said.
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