Karachi: Sindh Home Minister Ziaul Hassan Lanjar has said that Lyari gang war ringleaders Wasiullah Lakho and Abdul Samad Kathiawadi, who are involved in extortion in Karachi, are in Iran and the government will bring them here from Iran and present them in the courts.
He said this at a press conference at the Karachi Police Office along with IG Sindh Ghulam Nabi Memon and Additional IG Karachi Javed Alam Odho.
The Sindh Home Minister said that the problem of extortion in Karachi is quite serious and the Sindh government has always wanted to provide a safe environment to the business community in Karachi. The Special Investigation Team and the District Police have taken action on the threats received by the extortionists to the traders. In a few days, 4 extortionists were killed and 3 extortionists were arrested in an injured condition.
He said that Abdul Samad Kathiawadi, who is involved in extortion, is operating from Iran. The Sindh government has also written a letter to the Federal Ministry of Interior to issue a red warrant for him. A web portal has been created by the Special Investigation Unit Police where the business community can register their complaints.
Sindh Home Minister Zia Lanjar said that a robbery operation was going on on the motorway in Punjab province for eight hours. The robbers were looting in public, beating people and kidnapping 12 people, including people from their own city. No one dared to report it to the media. While our police have achieved successes, police officers are working like soldiers. A policy against the robbers of the khachapuri has been being formulated for a year. Our motorway is completely peaceful. We have not set up any convoy there. Punjab has set up convoys up to Multan.
He said that the petty robbers should not be lenient, the petty robbers want their lives to be safe, they want to be arrested and they arrest them when they are hit, our police have taken action, the price of the heads of the robbers who are being arrested is five hundred thousand to one crore rupees.
He said that the Chief Minister of Sindh has made a policy in collaboration with all stakeholders that whoever makes a criminal arrest will have to face the courts and will not be given a general amnesty.
IG Sindh said that the Special Branch has released a list of 232, then 104 and then 100 category A suspects involved in drugs and organized crime, 60 suspects supplying drugs to educational institutions and 60 suspects supplying drugs online, in which 80 percent of the suspects were arrested and are currently in jail.
IG Sindh said that when the police take such action, a lot of noise is created and everyone knows where the noise comes from.
IG Sindh said that for the last four months, the number of kidnappings for ransom in Sindh has been in single digits and at one time there was zero kidnapping cases. Currently, two cases from Karachi and one from Ghotki are pending and work is underway on them.
Additional IG Karachi Javed Alam Odho said that there was a slight wave of extortion in the city which has been controlled. During the last 2 weeks, the police have done remarkable work and more than 20 extortionists have been caught and five extortionists have been killed and 4 were arrested in an injured condition while 15 extortionists are being worked on.
He said that a total of 118 cases of extortion were registered in the city this year, out of which only 44 cases were purely extortion cases, the remaining cases were money transactions.
The Additional IG Karachi said that the extortion ringleaders Wasiullah Lakho and Samad Kathiawadi will soon be brought to justice. This year, there has been a 28 percent reduction in street crime, a 15 percent reduction in mobile snatching, a 19 percent reduction in vehicle snatching and an 8 percent reduction in motorcycle snatching. Cases of police killings have also been solved. After the arrest of the accused involved in police killing cases, the process of targeting officials has stopped.