Karachi police fail to recover snatched phones despite citizens tracing locations

Karachi police have failed to recover mobile phones snatched from citizens despite victims tracing the devices’ locations and sharing the information with law enforcement agencies, raising questions over the police response to street crime.

In at least two recent cases, victims independently traced the locations of their stolen phones and informed police, but no arrests or recoveries have been made so far.

On July 30, a young man was robbed of his mobile phone near Ayesha Masjid in Defence View Phase II, within the jurisdiction of the Baloch Colony police station. The victim later traced the phone’s location to FC Area in District Central and informed police. However, the phone has yet to be recovered.

In another incident on August 17, armed robbers snatched a young man’s local and foreign currency, passport, laptop and three mobile phones near the Karachi airport flyover, within the jurisdiction of the Airport police station.

The victim, who was due to travel to China the following day, traced the locations of his phones to the Murghi Khana area of Quaidabad and informed police. Despite having the location information, police have so far failed to recover the phones or arrest the suspects.

The victims said police did not conduct raids at the reported locations or take effective action based on the information provided to them.

According to data, 14,538 mobile phones worth millions of rupees have been snatched from citizens in Karachi by September this year.