Traders on Thursday said target killers were now targeting businessmen in the metropolis as killings of traders on resistance to the armed robbers had increased in just a month. "The situation turned grimmer since the Rangers got power to deal with target-killers and extortionists in order to restore peace in the city. The outlaws now targeting traders and doing armed robberies," traders of the old city area said on Thursday.
The Ranger performance is better against the vandals, target-killers and extortionists, but police role is dubious, traders expressed concerns, saying that trade in the markets had become impossible amid targeted violence. "A tinplate trader, Ramazan in Iron Sheet Market was shot dead on resistance near the Napier Police Station is the clear evidence against the police performance and role to clamp down on the robbers and killers," they criticised.
They said the fresh incident was the cold-blooded murder of a used clothes merchant in the Lighthouse, which stirred up agitation and clamour because the government and police had been altogether indifferent to the rise in the new trend of violence. "Around 30 traders have been killed in a year span in Karachi and many more injured after outlaws robbed," said Chairman All Karachi Tajir Ittehad, Muhammad Atiq Mir.
He said though the city's all shopping centres including ones in posh areas were in trouble at the hands of robbers. The rise in violence against traders had seen a sharp rise in the markets of old city area, which is located mainly in Lyari and Saddar Towns.
Previously, he said, the looters would only resort to the aerial gunfire to create panic among the public to warn not to offer resistance, but now there were no such tactics by the outlaws and they open straight fire.
"It is a very dangerous trend which has emerged now in the city," Mir said, adding that the police did not intervene amid the alarming situation, which had risked the traders and the citizens lives. He said the police had earlier set up checkpoints at different markets after traders' hue and cry but deployed no police personnel to provide security to businessmen and customers. "All the checkpoints remained fully empty with no police officials', he said. He said traders of the posh areas of Karachi refrained to register FIR for not having trust in the security and law enforcing. "Less than two percent of traders go to the police station to register FIR," he said. Mir expressed worries over the increase in looting and killings of traders.