THE provincial cabinet of Sindh announced on Thursday their decision to launch a joint operation aimed at cleaning up dacoits in the katcha areas of three provinces – Sindh, Punjab and Balochistan. The move was prompted by the frequent incidents of kidnapping for ransom and gangs of dacoits operating from the riverine areas of Sindh, attacking police. According to officials, the police of Punjab and Baluchistan, Rangers and Pakistan Army would participate in the operation.
It is intriguing that even after 75 years of creation of Pakistan, the problem of organized crime is there in parts of the country, especially in the interior Sindh, katcha areas of Punjab and Baluchistan and (former) tribal areas of KP. Numerous gangs of dacoits are freely operating in these and other regions posing threats to life and property of the citizens and endangering travel, transportation and trade activities. Successive governments realized the seriousness of the crime and conceived plans to eradicate it but there is no change in the ground situation. In 1992 army operation cleanup was started and dacoits were given a tough time, hundreds were killed and others went underground but they were not eliminated completely because there are causes behind this crime and no government is ready to address those factors and causes. There are legitimate complaints that organized crime goes on with full connivance of local police and influential people. Dacoits are so organized that they have sophisticated weapons, are professionally trained and have reliable informers in police and civil society. Under these circumstances, it is doubtful whether gangs of dacoits would be waiting there in their areas of operations to be killed or arrested in the highly publicized joint operation of the three provinces, assisted and aided by Pakistan Army and Rangers. However, this organized crime can definitely be eliminated if there was resolve and better coordination among law-enforcing agencies and an across the board operation is launched free of wadera influence.
