EDITORIAL: For quite some time, the Indus Highway passing through the Katcha Area (riverine region) in southern Punjab and upper Sindh had become a favourite hunting ground of criminal gangs, looting bus and car passengers of their valuables.
However as a press report points out, since the police increased the number of check posts and deployment of personnel, criminal gangs have changed their modus operandi, turning to social media to quietly lure unsuspecting victims with offers of cheap car sales also using women to lay honey traps to kidnap them for ransom.
Police data shows at least 250 people from Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Punjab and Sindh have become victims of the criminal gangs’ new tactics during the first half of the current year.
Most of them were recovered in police operations. But not all have been lucky, like a Rawalpindi taxi driver who responding to an advertisement on Facebook last month arrived in Ubauro, an administrative subdivision of Ghotki district in Sindh, to buy the car but ended up dead after his family failed to fulfil his abductors’ demand for Rs 10 million ransom.
In another reported case a teenaged boy from Khanpur in Punjab met a girl on social media and went to see her in the Katcha Area. Soon afterwards, his family received a phone call demanding ransom for his release. He was rescued, though, by the police.
The riverine region along the River Sindh has virtually become a no-go area infested by robbers equipped with sophisticated weapons, including rocket launchers and speed boats. The police weapons and resources are grossly insufficient to deal with the challenge.
It may be recalled that back 2016 after the police failed to reclaim control of an area in Rajanpur from the then notorious ‘Chhotu Gang’, Army had to be called in to help defeat that band of criminals. Since then law enforcement agencies have conducted several operations.
Last year, the Punjab government decided to establish several check posts, police stations, and build bridges on the river to facilitate police patrolling, achieving limited success.
As per police claims, during the recent weeks 10 gangsters were killed, 8 injured, and 51 others arrested. One policeman also lost his life and his seven colleagues sustained injuries in these operations.
And now the criminal elements have come up with an ingenious scheme to ensnare potential victims rather than resort to highway robberies that attract media attention causing public outcry. Clearly, the use of force alone has not, will not, resolve the problem; what gives rise to it needs to be duly addressed.
Those familiar with the region say that for most local people there are no other means of earning livelihoods than to join robber gangs. It is imperative therefore that the two provincial governments pay special attention to socio-economic uplift of the people living in that lawless region.
It’s been a year since Prime Minister Shehbaz Sharif approved several development projects, and also asked the Punjab government to start construction of roads, hospitals and schools creating employment opportunities for the local population. But nothing seems to be off the ground yet.
A new proposal of development projects worth Rs 31 billion is said to be in the works. Hopefully, it would be implemented sooner rather than later, providing employment to those willing and able to work and security to all others who venture into those areas for whatever reasons.
Copyright Business Recorder, 2023