Karachi: City intersections flooded with begging refugee children

[Naveed Yaseen]

Scores of refugee children have flooded Karachi, and can be seen begging and wiping the windscreens of vehicles at different intersections of the city. These children are said to have been smuggled to Karachi to be used as professional beggars.

They range in age from seven to 12 years, and speak only a language which sounds like it may be Pushto. They don’t understand or speak Urdu. These children surround vehicles as they halt at red signals, and cling for alms even if the signals turn green, hindering the flow of traffic and irritating the traffic police.

Over 60 such children along with two women could be seen at the Five Star Chowrangi in North Nazimabad, where a traffic police constable, Syed Mohammad Naseem, was seen running behind them. “I have to control traffic here but my concentration is disturbed, because these children are at risk being run over by traffic,” he said, adding that they don’t even understand Urdu. The area police had picked up some of them around three days ago, but they have mysteriously reappreared, Naseem said.

A local beggar, Nazir Ahmed, said that the number of these children with wipers was increasing and there were some guardians (contractors) of these children who appeared at the intersection on and off to keep a check on them.

SP-2 of the Traffic Police, K.K. Memon, said that the local police would control the issue. “You can send a request to the local police or the District Police Officer (DPO) regarding the matter,” he said, while Town Police Officer (TPO) Nazimabad, Rana Pervez, said that he had never looked into this matter before. “I assure you however that today all those children would be removed from that intersection,” he said.

There are 973 intersections in Karachi and those refugee children beg at 300 to 400 intersections, said Rana Asif.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=154300