“On Friday morning, a patrol party of the Preedy police station noticed shutters of several shops unlocked and damaged,” said Inspector Malik Salim, SHO of the Preedy police station. – APP Photo
KARACHI: Eleven shops of cellphones and their accessories in the electronics market of Saddar were on Friday found to have been robbed in an overnight break-in being blamed for over Rs6 million losses.
Traders of Koh-i-Noor Mobile Market in the Saddar area were shocked and angry in equal measure over the robbery and remained initially unable to estimate the exact amount of the losses they may have sustained. However, police investigators believed that a major portion of the market remained unaffected.
“On Friday morning, a patrol party of the Preedy police station noticed shutters of several shops unlocked and damaged,” said Inspector Malik Salim, SHO of the Preedy police station.
“After counting the number of affected shops to be 30, we called traders and their leaders.”
When traders reached and checked, some 11 of the 30 shops whose shutters were pulled up or locks broken were without most of their items, including cellphones, accessories and also cash.
“The number of robbers is not clear because we have no eyewitness to the incident right now. Fortunately, the robbers preferred to take away goods of only 11 shops despite successfully opening the shutters of 30 shops,” added the SHO.
Though the police authorities were reluctant to say anything about the magnitude of the robbery, traders felt certain that they had lost assets in millions. They added that final estimates would take time to be worked out.
“Each affected trader will lodge a separate FIR and so far only one of our members has managed to estimate his losses,” said Muhammad Idrees, president of the Karachi Electronics Dealers Association (KEDA).
“An FIR (1284/2010) has been registered under Sections 392 (punishment for robbery) and 34 (common intention) of the Pakistan Penal Code against unidentified suspects on the complaint of a shopkeeper, Javed Ahmed, of Muskaan Traders.”
He said the other 10 traders were currently busy estimating the final losses.
Mr Idrees also led a demonstration held by traders in protest against the incident, which kept vehicular traffic suspended for several hours. The traders blamed the police authorities and other security institutions for failing to solve a single case of robbery committed in the electronics market in the past.
However, police investigators found serious flaws in the market security system said to be designed and operated by the traders themselves. They have detained a couple of watchmen of the market who are thought to have been appointed without any verification.
“The marked is guarded by a couple of watchmen appointed recently by the traders association,” said Amin Yousufzai, who holds the additional charge of SSP of Saddar Town these days.
“One of them called his colleague and said he would not come to work on Thursday night when the crime was committed. He has been missing and untraced since that last call he made to his colleague.”
Police also detained the other watchman, the only man who was on duty that night, he said.
Surprisingly, he showed unawareness about any such incident and said he did not see anyone breaking in the shops, SSP Yousufzai said.
“We have detained him and also the contractor who referred the watchmen to the market for appointment. Similarly, shutters and locks of the shops were also found weak and of low quality. We have decided to speak to traders and their leaders to devise the security system of the market,” said SSP Yousufzai.
