Horrifying stories print in local newspapers and are whispered in coffee shops and bus stops: brutal deaths at the hands of armed robbers occur every day in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi.
Last Wednesday, a car mechanic was shot dead by a robber trying to steal his mobile phone. The day before, robbers killed a second-hand shoe seller who refused to hand over his mobile phone and a businessman who had just withdrawn cash from a bank in two separate incidents. A few days before that, a 27-year-old mechanical engineer was killed by robbers who stole his mobile phone, cash and motorcycle.
Pakistan’s economic powerhouse, Karachi, is seeing a sharp rise in violent crime rates, creating a sense that nowhere is safe in the metropolis of 20 million people and leading many to worry the city is returning to an era of violence and chaos. President Asif Ali Zardari has called for a “massive operation” against street criminals.
“Every time I go outside I live in fear of being robbed,” said Shamim Ali, 43, a factory worker who said he has been robbed twice in recent months. “Criminals are bolder in broad daylight.”
According to the government-backed Civil Police Liaison Committee, the number of reported murders, extortion attempts and motorcycle thefts has nearly doubled this year compared with the same period last year. Police records show that at least 58 people have been killed in robberies in the first five months of 2024, nearly double the number in the same period in 2023. Human rights activists say the actual toll of violent crimes is probably higher because many victims are reluctant to report incidents.
Experts and police officials say the main factor behind the rise in crime is Pakistan’s worst economic collapse in decades, with soaring debt, a widening trade deficit and record inflation. Another factor is record floods and other natural disasters in 2022 that have sent tens of thousands of farmers fleeing to cities in search of work. Few have found work.
Activists said the economic collapse and population boom were further straining local government’s already limited capacity to provide basic services such as water and sanitation, deepening desperation among the city’s poorest people.
The rise in crime is the result of “systematic injustice and a failure of state accountability,” said Qazi Khizar, deputy chairman of Pakistan’s Independent Human Rights Commission. “Decades of neglect of the city have created a pressure cooker that is about to explode,” he added.
Police say the desperation has emboldened the city’s criminal gangs, who are finding allies among the city’s burgeoning youth population. Raja Umar Khattab, head of Karachi police’s counterterrorism wing, said some of the robberies-turned-murders were linked to militant groups that have been reactivated in recent years across the country.
Ali, a factory worker who has been the victim of two recent robberies, said the latest incident happened at about 9 a.m. at his usual breakfast spot in a low-income neighborhood when four armed robbers burst into the shop as he was having tea.
“Give me your cell phones and wallets now!” the assailants shouted, warning customers not to resist, according to Ali. Within minutes, the assailants had robbed 24 people inside the store of their valuables.
The escalating violence has returned the city to a situation similar to that of a decade ago, when armed political parties, Taliban militants, and criminal gangs controlled large swaths of the city and turf wars frequently spilled onto the streets. Reports of murders filled the nightly television news. Families checked each other’s homes each day to make sure they’d returned alive from work. Some people barely left their homes.
A paramilitary-led operation to flush out militants that began in 2013 restored order, and homicides fell sharply from about 3,100 in 2012 to 508 in 2020, according to police data.
But now fear and anger are back. “It seems the government has left Karachi’s residents at the mercy of bandits,” said Syed Akhtar Hussain, 70, whose 38-year-old son, Syed Ali Rehabha, was shot dead in January after being attacked by robbers while delivering food via a ride-hailing app.
On a recent afternoon in a busy coffee shop along a major road in Karachi, dozens of taxi drivers, businessmen and university students chatted in the shade over steaming cups. Nearly all of them kept a vigilant eye on the road, suspecting a passing motorbike rider might be a bandit in disguise.
“Before 2014, we were worried about ethnic violence and stray bullets from gang wars,” said Muhammad Zahir, a 33-year-old computer trader. “Security operations kept the peace for a few years, but now the fear is different. Criminals on the street will not hesitate to kill you if you don’t hand over your phone.”
Social media has only compounded the collective anxiety: Every day new videos appear showing robbers stealing valuables in broad daylight on busy streets, in restaurants, at traffic lights, at barber shops, and even at mosques.
As public anger grows, political leaders are scrambling to find solutions. Authorities have proposed regulations to restrict the sale of used cellphones and motorbikes, which are easy targets for robbers. Mayor Murtaza Wahab has promised to install thousands of surveillance cameras. Others, including the governor, some political parties and business groups, are calling for a tougher response, such as intervening with the military or issuing firearms licenses to help residents protect themselves.
Last month, President Zardari instructed the provincial government to launch an operation to crack down on Karachi’s street criminals, but no such action has yet begun, and experts warn it could make the problem worse.
“Historically, pressure on police for quick results has led to violent and coercive practices such as orchestrated encounter killings, custodial torture, arbitrary detention and shoot-to-kill policies,” said Zoha Waseem, a Pakistan policing expert at the University of Warwick in the U.K. “Police response is not a long-term solution,” she added.
Public confidence in the police, already weakened by years of corruption and inefficiency, has plummeted following revelations that many officers have been implicated in street crime: In January alone, more than 55 Karachi police officers were suspended for allegedly being involved with or accepting bribes from criminal groups.
Some residents have taken the problem into their own hands, leading to an alarming rise in vigilantism.
Last Wednesday, a mob enraged by a robbery chased two fleeing men, killing one and wounding the other. A day earlier, a mob lynched another suspected robber. Three days before that, police narrowly saved three robbery suspects from a lynching.
“Public discontent is simmering and mob violence has become dangerously normalized,” said Muhammad Nafees, a crime and violence expert at the Islamabad-based Center for Research and Security Studies. “Mobs are carrying out punishments based on mere suspicion, putting both the innocent and the guilty at risk.”
