ISLAMABAD: Failing to protect the capital from criminals, the Islamabad Police is busy in making claims that the city is safer than most of the capitals of developed countries in the world, when the citizens of Islamabad are being robbed in broad daylight.
Two recent robberies in a month, and that too in only one sector, I-8, deprived two citizens of 2.3 million rupees and the police is yet to find a clue to start investigation.
The safe city project has not helped in tracing down the criminals either because the cameras at most busy places are either dysfunctional or have a bad view and image quality.
Ishtiaq Ahmed and Athar Ejaz are two citizens who got robbed in the last two weeks of September. Ishtiaq was robbed at gunpoint in sector I-8/1 on September 23 and was deprived of Rs800,000 and Athar was robbed on gunpoint too and was deprived of Rs1.5 million on September 30. After the robbery, criminals who came on a bike, reportedly escaped the place without having any encounter with the police.
The victims claimed that they called 15 and local police instantly after the robbery but no action was taken on a war-foot basis to trace the criminals.
A police investigator, requesting anonymity, revealed that the complaints were lodged in both cases, and the inspection of the crime-scene was done. “We are struggling to find the robbers but they usually use fake number plates on their bikes and cover their faces with the mask and wear a helmet which makes a hurdle in recognising them both through witnesses (if any), victims and safe city cameras,” he claimed.
Islamabad Police Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Operations Waqar Uddin was contacted for the comment but he did not respond till the time of filing of this report.
