Pakistan: Sikh community traders in K-P complain they are receiving calls from extortionists

A local Sikh trader who has a cosmetics shop in the Karkhano Market recently received a call from Afghan numbers asking him to pay ‘charity money’ to the militants. The businessman has received two calls for extortion in a short span of two days and is being threatened with dire consequences if he failed to pay up, The Express Tribune reported.

The Hayatabad police have opened an inquiry into the case.

“Police had been informed in January about the calls,” said a member of the Sikh community to the newspaper.

The Sikh people, who stay in the old walled city in Mohallah Jogan Shah area, are also unhappy with the attitude of the police.

A Sikh elder Baba Gurpal Singh told The Express Tribune that police cooperate with us on paper and attend even our religious events but despite that his community was the target of ever increasing street crimes.

“Recently armed robbers snatched mobile phones at gunpoint from our guest Raqbir Singh, who came from Rawalpindi for worship in January. Despite the passage of three months no robbers have been arrested,” he lamented, adding that two motorcycles were stolen from Moti Mohalla which have not been traced out yet.

“Now we are reluctant to go to the police stations and even lodge an FIR as no progress is made by the police for (the looted items’) recovery,” he said, adding that initially the police was reluctant to register the FIR and they had to approach the SSP operations to register a complaint properly.