Five armed men riding three motorcycles took 55 high-end mobile phones from a trader inside Karachi’s mobile market near the city’s high-security Red Zone, in an incident that has drawn an immediate response from Additional Inspector General Karachi Azad Khan and renewed attention to the city’s worsening street crime situation.
According to police, the five suspects intercepted the trader inside the market, taking two cartons and a bag containing the mobile phones before fleeing the scene. Additional IG Azad Khan took immediate notice of the incident and sought a detailed report from the Deputy Inspector General South, directing law enforcement to utilise all available resources to recover the stolen devices and pursue the suspects. The location of the incident, in close proximity to one of the city’s most heavily secured zones, has added to the concern surrounding the case and prompted questions about the adequacy of patrol coverage in adjacent commercial areas.
The incident sits within a broader pattern of surging mobile phone theft across Karachi that Citizens-Police Liaison Committee data has made difficult to dismiss. According to figures released by the committee for the month of May, a total of 4,671 criminal incidents were recorded across the city in a single month, with 1,860 mobile phones taken at gunpoint during that period alone. Motorcycle theft and vehicle-related crime also featured prominently in the data, with 445 motorcycles taken at gunpoint and 2,240 stolen across the city in the same month, alongside 20 vehicles taken at gunpoint and 106 stolen. The May statistics also recorded one bank robbery, 10 extortion incidents, and 56 fatalities linked to firing and other violent incidents across the metropolis.
The persistent scale of mobile phone theft in Karachi reflects both the high street value of modern smartphones and the challenges law enforcement faces in disrupting organised street crime networks that operate across multiple districts. Citizens and trader associations have repeatedly called for increased police patrolling and more visible security presence in commercial areas, particularly in markets and transit corridors where traders regularly move high-value goods and remain vulnerable to interception by armed groups familiar with their routines.
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