Joblessness contributing to lawlessness: businesspeople

Forced closure of electricity supply to the industrial sectors has resulted into increase in crime rate by 25 percent in the provincial metropolis, said industrial circles. They said the number of fake police encounters is on the rise, which suggests that more and more unemployed youth is being pushed to the criminal activities.
Police sources told Business Recorder that during the first eight months of this year at least 450 people have been murdered while 25 people including women were murdered on offering resistance during armed robberies. Meanwhile, the gangsters hit more than 8 banks located in different parts of the city.
The police reported at least 3,100 cases of armed robberies, at least 1,100 cars and more than 4,000 motorcycles were either snatched or stolen away, which is up by 30 percent comparatively. Interestingly, the police has staged over two dozen fake encounters and killed more than 30 'criminals' but there is no letup in the incidents of armed robberies, kidnappings and car-lifting.
It is also important to note that each day 15,000 to 20,000 Pakistanis apply for the passport and many of them wanted to go abroad for employment and immigration besides medical treatment. There are some 6000 industrial units in and across the Lahore city against some 10,000 units in the city of Karachi.
There is a general impression that about 50 percent of industry is closed down in the province of Punjab due to energy shortage, both electricity and gas. The government has failed to ensure uninterrupted energy supply to industry despite repeated attempts. President Asif Ali Zardari has also agreed to the fact that all efforts to control load shedding and inflation proved futile despite addition of 3500MW to power supply.
The industry circles have expressed deep concerns over energy situation with the start of winter when they would be deprived of gas supply due to high domestic pressure. Already, the industry is being deprived of twice a week gas supply at present. The industry circles have also criticized themselves for lack of unity on such an important issue. According to them, the industrial consumer cannot come on street the way the domestic consumers reacts to undue load shedding. Resultantly, they said, the industry fails to take top position on the priority list of energy supply.