Karachi: Plaza Market pranksters go on unchecked

[Naveed Yaseen]

By Salis bin Perwaiz
Despite several public complaints, gangs of tricksters continue to harass and cheat innocent motorcycle and car owners in the Plaza Area while the police claim helplessness, The News has learnt. These youngsters are defrauding people on the pretext of repairing and decorating their vehicles.

One such case was reported in Preedy Police Station, wherein a private firm employee Sahibuddin stated that on October 31, when he reached near Plaza Market, six to seven young men came across his car (AGV-170) and offered to do some repair work. To this he agreed.

Before starting the repair work like fitting rubber bits and strips and doing miscellaneous minor work, these young men gave him an estimate of Rs 6,000 to Rs7,000. They also assured that the amount would not exceed the said figure.

But after completing the work the same men produced a bill of Rs 38,000. When Sahibuddin challenged their bill, these men, who worked as a gang, started using abusive language following which he tried to contact his colleagues and family members.

In the meantime, these young criminals forcibly entered into his car and took him to a spot near Mama Parsi School, where they kept on threatening him and confined him at the place for six hours. They only released Sahibuddin after he paid them the sum of Rs38,000.

After a few days Sahibuddin again saw these six young boys near Plaza Market, following which he immediately called the area police. Upon seeing the police, these suspect boys slipped away. However, the police caught one of them who was identified as Zakir. It was was said that he was the group leader.

According to the complainant, during the process of FIR and interrogation of the suspect, several market men came to the support of Zakir and forced the police to let him go. However, the police lodged a case against the suspect.

In another incident, a man was handed down a bill of Rs25,600 for minor repair works of his car. However, he managed to get two suspects arrested while drawing amount of the “bill” at a bak near the US Consulate.

It was learnt that a gang was operating at the Plaza Market which had robbed several people, and in one such case they extracted Rs40,000 from a customer for installing door rubber parts. Despite the public complaints, the Sadar Town police does not seem interested to lay hands on these criminal elements, said one observer.

Many affected people are of the view that these criminals enjoy the support of area police and have appealed to the authorities concerned to take serious notice of this mode of crime.