In two separate encounters with the city police Karachi, a Lyari gangwar suspect was shot dead while another violent criminal was apprehended after he was wounded early morning today.
According to Senior Superintendent of Police, Fida Hussain, cops engaged a gangster in Chakiwara, a slum in the heart of crime-infested Lyari in a gunfight, which eventually left the outlaw mortally wounded. He died shortly after, while weapons were recovered from the person of the slain suspect. The police did not specify the nature and type of the weapon.
In another such action in the western SITE Town, named after Sindh Industrial Trading Estate (SITE), an alleged criminal was apprehended in an injured condition after a shoot out.
An operation by police and paramilitary forces launched in 2013 in the metropolis has brought murders down from a rate of seven or eight a day to two or three, along with a 23 percent fall in street crime.
According to police figures, since July 2014 at least 895 criminals and militants were killed in gun fights.
On the streets, residents say they feel safer and are able to go to previously dangerous areas like the Taliban-infested Sohrab Goth district, where the Rangers have conducted several raids.
At the city’s main Jinnah Hospital, a senior official who spoke only on condition of anonymity pointed out that most victims of “encounters” have telltale signs quietly ignored in reports.
Another medical official with extensive experience of the cases said victims were often shot at close range through a piece of tyre, which shields the body from residue and gives the impression the shot was fired from a distance.
Karachi, a sprawling port city of 18 million people, has been wracked by criminal, ethnic and political violence since the 1990s. In recent years it has also become a home to Islamist militants.
