‘Over 50 groups of extortionists active in Peshawar’

The incidents of kidnapping, threatening the well-off people through bomb blasts and hurling hand grenades at their houses for extortion of money have become a routine in the provincial metropolis though many gangs involved in such crimes have been busted during the past few weeks in the district. Terrorists have focused on accumulation of wealth and the latest way is to call for payment of extortion and in case of refusal attack houses of the targeted people through IEDs and hand grenades, sources say. They said that various groups were active in Peshawar, using Afghan SIMs to call the people first and those avoiding the payment were targeted through hand grenades or improvised explosive devices to terrorise them. A source said that a group of militants belonging to Adezai village was also involved in extortion and one of its members was recently killed in encounter near Khatko Pul area. The source said that over 50 groups were active in parts of the district and they had carried out at least 35 attacks during the past two months. He said that some of them had links with militants while the rest had different priorities. In many cases, police said that relatives and business rivals obtained the services of outlaws for scaring their competitors in various fields. Some of the victims avoided narrating their stories for fear of reprisal, but confirmed they had received calls for payment of extortion. One of them, a businessman, said that he had been asked to pay Rs5 million or face the wrath of alleged Taliban. “I didn’t pay heed to the call and few days later they attacked my residence with a hand grenade,” he said. SSP Najeebur Rehman told Dawn that 46 outlaws involved in extortion were arrested. They belonged to different groups and most of them were Afghans, he added. “We have seized 18,000 unregistered SIMs during a raid recently and arrested the accused, but police faced problems to stop its activation due to lack of MoU or treaty with Afghan government in this regard,” he said. The SSP said that the criminals seemed to be there but the location they were talking from showed to be in Afghanistan or tribal regions. Besides, he said, in record the population of Peshawar was 3.8 million, but due to shifting of Afghans and IDPs it had reached 6.5 million wherein criminals could easily change locations. The official said that victims avoided registration of FIRs and police had to request them for sharing information about the calls. SP Ismail Kharak told this correspondent that the main target of the criminals was the businessmen, who belonged to tribal regions especially Mohmand Agency. He claimed that those arrested so far were either Afghan nationals or IDPs, saying at least 20 per cent of them had used Afghan SIMs.