Journalist Athar Mateen laid to rest

The funeral prayers for journalist Athar Mateen, who was shot dead by robbers in North Nazimabad on Friday, were offered on Saturday afternoon at the Al-Siddiqui Mosque in Clifton before he was laid to rest in the Yasinabad graveyard.

Along with the journalist’s family members, President Arif Alvi, Sindh Governor Imran Ismail, Sindh Information Minister Saeed Ghani, Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) leader Aleem Khan, Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Amir Khan and Dr Farooq Sattar and Jamaat-e-Islami Karachi Emir Hafiz Naeemur Rehman attended the funeral prayers.

Mateen, who was working for a private news channel as a senior producer, was shot dead near Five Star Chowrangi in the North Nazimabad area when he tried to thwart a robbery.

Different units of the police have been tasked with investigating the case. The police have also taken the owner of the motorcycle used by the assailants in custody.

Investigators suspect that the assailants who killed the journalist were professional motorcycle lifters. “Nothing could exactly be said about the suspects involved in the incident but we assume that the suspects are among those involved in the snatchings of Suzuki 150cc motorcycles in the city,” Special Investigation Unit chief SSP Arif Aziz, who is also a member of the investigation team formed to probe the case, told The News.

“If we are not wrong, these suspects are the same who have carried out motorcycle snatchings in the morning hours.”

SSP Aziz explained that the police had also collected footage of five motorcycle snatching incidents by the same suspects in New Karachi, Garden, North Nazimabad and Federal B Area and the investigators were trying to take help from geo-fencing.

The journalist was returning home after dropping his children at a school when he saw armed men mugging a citizen. While the mugging was in process, a daredevil motorist hit the robbers' bike with his car and sped away. Encouraged by the bold act, Mateen, acting as a Good Samaritan, also tried to rescue the street crime victim and rammed his car into the robbers' motorbike, knocking down the armed bandits. However, to his bad luck, after hitting their motorbike once, Mateen reversed his car to hit them again, but by that time one of the robbers stood up, took aim and fired at him, leaving him critically wounded.

Meanwhile, the journalist’s brother held the provincial government, Rangers and police responsible for his death.

“Law enforcement agencies are involved in the crime,” victim’s brother Tariq Mateen said in an interview to a private news channel.

“The robber who shot my brother was a trained shooter as he had taken a single fatal shot.”

Criminals at large

A total of 16 people have so far been killed and around 90 others wounded during street crime in Karachi in 2022. Besides deaths, citizens of Karachi have also been deprived of valuables worth tens of millions of rupees during the current year.

As many as 343 people lost their lives during the last six years for resisting mugging bids in Karachi. In 2021, 64 people were killed and 326 wounded during mugging incidents.

A total of 54 people were killed in the city during mugging incidents in 2020, 44 in 2019, 54 in 2018 and 54 in 2017. In 2016, robbers killed 73 people during mugging incidents, reads data compiled by newspapers.

Statistics compiled by the Citizens-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) also show a dismal law and order situation in the city. According to the CPLC, more than 50,000 citizens of Karachi became victims of street criminals in 2021, more than 55,042 people were deprived of their cars, motorcycles and mobile phones.

In the first 50 days of the ongoing year, the CPLC says, more than 13,000 people were deprived of cars, motorcycles and mobile phones.