Daily Times

KARACHI: Provincial Home Minister, Sohail Anwar Siyal and IG Sindh AD Khawaja completely failed to enforce ban under section 144 imposed on the sale and purchase of “toy guns” as thousands of children across the city kept on playing with the “banned toys”.

The toy guns were available almost at all shops of the city despite ban under the umbrella of relevant police stations of metropolis. Sale of toy guns remained highly profitable business for the shopkeepers.

Information of several children being affected by plastic bullets was received from various areas of the city especially from areas of Orangi Town, Baldia Town, SITE Town, Qaidabad, Malir City, Landhi, Korangi, Shahfaisal Colony, Mehmoodabad, Nazimabad, North Karachi, Surjani Town where the parents complained that the toy guns were easily available to their children and all the money their children collected as Eidi was spent to purchase toy guns and plastic bullets.

The toy guns were being sold out without any fear shopkeepers exhibited theses guns in their shelves openly. The area police responsible to curb the sale of contraband either opted to stay away or simply took money from the shopkeepers, according to the residents and shopkeepers.

One shop keeper in Majeed Colony area told that he preferred to give Rs 500-1000 for each day of Eid to avail huge profit.

It is pertinent to mention that the government of Sindh in the last days of Ramadan had imposed a ban on the sale and use of toy guns throughout the province including Karachi for two month, according to the notification issued by Sindh home ministry on Saturday, the use and sale of toy guns have a negative impact on the minds of young children. Hence, in order to curb the spread of this negativity among the mindset of these young individuals, the ban was imposed on the use and sale of toy guns throughout the province. The ban had been imposed for next two month, using Section 144.

According to the notification some street criminals also use the toy guns for the robberies as people were unable to not recognize these weapons especially in the night.

Street crimes every year go on rise especially in Ramdan and before the Eid while the trend of purchasing toy guns during Eid day also increases among children which has been causing negative impact on their personality and the society.

“It is a failure of sindh police because if the government has imposed ban then police was responsible to implement it. Law is not a jock otherwise one can think that it was a step to give chance to police for extra income” Abdul Majeed a resident of Malir said.

Published in Daily Times, June 29th, 2017.