Pakistan: Criminal Surge In Sindh – Analysis
On March 8, 2025, six members of the Ahmadi community were arrested by the Khawaja Ajmer Nagri Police Station in the Surjani Town of Karachi city, after being taken into “protective custody” following threats from a sectarian group, Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP). On the previous day, at least 25 members of the Ahmadi community, including children, had been taken into “protective custody” by the Police, as a mob gathered outside an Ahmadiyya place of worship in Surjani Town. West Zone Deputy Inspector General of Police (DIG) Irfan Ali Baloch noted, “several workers of the Tehreek-e-Labbaik Pakistan (TLP) gathered outside the Ahmadi place of worship in Surjani Town. They demanded to prevent (sic) the Ahmadis from offering Friday prayers and using symbols of Islam.” Following their ‘protective custody’, Police registered cases against six members of the community.
The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) report, released on February 26, 2025, observed a growing trend of mob-led attacks on homes of families belonging to religious minorities, as well as their places of worship. The report, Under Siege: Freedom of Religion or Belief in 2023-24, observed that over 750 persons were in prison on charges of blasphemy, as of October 2024. It documented at least four faith-based killings, three of which targeted the Ahmadi community. HRCP also spoke of Ahmadis’ “arbitrary detention”, “desecration of their graves”, and the “vulnerability of Hindu and Christian women” to forced conversion.
A key finding of the report is that disinformation on social media was the spark behind most of the registered blasphemy cases. It narrates that members of the TLP played a role in filing blasphemy cases against Ahmadis, orchestrating campaigns to stop them from celebrating Eidul Azha, and even accompanying Police during raids to confiscate sacrificial meat. Videos circulating on social media show TLP activists, alongside law enforcement personnel, raiding Ahmadi households, lending credence to allegations about the complicity of state actors in religious persecution. Desecration of graves remains a recurring violation against the community, according to the HRCP. The report documented numerous Ahmadi cemeteries were attacked across Punjab and Sindh in 2023 and 2024, with “police and district authorities participating” in some instances. “A total of 42 attacks on Ahmadis’ places of worship were recorded, with nearly 60 per cent of these either conducted or supervised by law enforcement agencies,” HRCP said.
While religious extremism has evidently been growing in the province, Islamist terrorism took a back seat in the initial days of the current and as well as the corresponding period of previous year. According to partial data compiled by the South Asia Terrorism Portal (SATP), the first 80 days of 2025 have, recorded only four fatalities, including three Security Force (SF) personnel and one civilian, in three terrorism related incidents, in comparison to nine fatalities, including seven civilians and one SF trooper and terrorist, each, in six terrorism related incidents over the same period in 2024. Terrorism related incidents through 2024 also saw a marginal decrease of eight per cent, from 41 fatalities (17 civilians, 12 Security Force personnel and 12 militants) in 28 terrorism related incidents in 2023, to 38 fatalities (15 civilians, 14 Security Force personnel and nine militants) in 24 terrorism related incidents in 2024. While Sindh recorded ups and down in annual fatality figures since 2017, the highest terrorism-related fatalities in the province were reported in 2013, at 1,656.
Other parameters of terrorism remained low, with 64 terrorism related incidents in 2024, as compared to 79 such incidents in 2023. Though there was an increase in the number of explosions in 2024, at 12, up from 10 in 2023, the resultant fatalities decrease to 10 in 2024 from 12 in 2023. Meanwhile, both years recorded one suicide attack each, but the resultant fatalities decrease from nine in 2023 to four in 2024.
Meanwhile, out of 30 Districts in Sindh, the capital city, Karachi, remained the epicentre of terrorism. Out of 38 fatalities reported in the Province in 2024, Karachi alone recorded 27. The remaining 11 fatalities were reported from Ghotki (5), Kashmore (2), Shikarpur (2), Jacobabad (1) and Jamshoro District (1).
While, other parameters of terrorism also remained low in 2024, the number of major incidents, each involving at least three fatalities, increased from two in 2023 to four in 2024. The resultant fatalities also increased to 13 in 2024 from 12 in 2023. Two of the most prominent attacks of 2024 were on foreign nationals:
October 6, 2024: Three Chinese engineers and two civilians were killed while 13 persons sustained injuries when the Majeed Brigade of the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA) orchestrated a Vehicle-Borne Improvised Explosive Device (VBIED) attack on a convoy of Chinese engineers on a road near Jinnah International Airport in Karachi. The Majeed Brigade claimed responsibility for the attack, stating that it was a suicide bombing carried out using a VBIED. While providing details of the suicide attack, the BLA ‘spokesperson’ Jeeyand Baloch claimed at least 15 military personnel were killed.
April 19, 2024: Two persons were killed in a suicide attack on Japanese nationals in the Landhi area of Karachi in the morning. Two terrorists fired at a van carrying Japanese nationals, after which one of them blew himself up, while the other was shot dead by security personnel in an exchange of fire. A driver and guard protecting the foreigners were killed. All five Japanese nationals, who were working at Port Qasim, remained unhurt. Though no group claimed responsibility for the attack, security officials suspected TTP involvement.
Apart from Islamist terrorist groups, including TTP and Baloch separatist groups, Sindhi separatist formations such as the Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army (SRA) and Sindhudesh Liberation Army (SLA), remained violently active in the region. In the night of January 2, 2024, Sindhudesh Revolutionary Army (SRA) cadres ambushed a Pakistan Rangers (Sindh) vehicle in Dadu town (Dadu District) of Sindh, injuring two Rangers personnel. In a media statement, SRA claimed that two Rangers personnel, including a Lance Naik, were killed and three were seriously injured. Similarly, on February 2, SRA orchestrated an explosion near the Election Commission office in Karachi, though there was no loss of life. SRA claimed responsibility for the attack.
In coordination with the Baloch separatist groups, the Sindhi outfits have been teaming up to counter Punjabi hegemony in the region. On June 23, SRA ‘chief’ Syed Asghar Shah issued a media statement declaring China as the biggest enemy of the Sindhis and ally of the Punjabis, who he claimed had enslaved the Sindhi people. Shah emphasized that the “conscious” people of the Sindhi nation and the workers of the Sindhi national movement understood that a friend of their foe cannot be their friend. Shah stated that, for the past 77 years, China had been a close ally of Punjab, the oppressor of the Sindhi people. He alleged that China aimed not only to capture and exploit the mineral wealth, coastal waters, and transportation routes of the Sindhi and Baloch nations, but also to establish itself as a challenger to the global order. Further, he asserted that China was providing financial and military aid to Punjab, the enemy of the Sindhi people.
A March 2, 2025, media report noted that SRA had joined the Baloch Raji Aajoi Sangar (BRAS), an alliance of “pro-independence” insurgent groups of Balochistan, to intensify operations against Pakistan and China. In a statement, BRAS ‘spokesperson’ Baloch Khan disclosed that a high-level meeting was held with senior delegates from the BLA, Balochistan Liberation Front (BLF), Baloch Republican Guards (BRG), and SRA.
The result of this alliance was reflected in the attack on March 4, 2025, when SRA cadres ambushed National Logistics Cell (NLC) vehicles on the Sujawal-Mirpur Bathoro Road in the Sujawal District (previously in Thatta District) of Sindh, inflicting injuries on two drivers. In a statement shared with local media, SRA ‘spokesperson’ Sodho Sindhi claimed that the drivers were severely injured and the vehicles were damaged. Sodho Sindhi accused the Pakistani state of “occupying Sindh” and exploiting its resources “without restraint.” He alleged that Sindh’s land and resources belonged to future generations of the Sindhi people and would be defended “at all costs… we will continue our resistance until the complete national independence of Sindh is achieved.” Significantly, SRA attacked the NLC vehicles on March 4, just two days after the high-level meeting of BRAS on March 2. The modus operandi of the attack by SRA also followed the pattern of Baloch insurgent attacks.
Earlier, on February 15, the SRA cadres attacked NLC tankers near the Mirpur Mathelo area of Ghotki District. SRA ‘spokesperson’ Sodho Sindhi stated that the attack was a response to what he described as the Pakistani state’s exploitation of Sindh’s resources: “The state diverts water from the Indus River through six canals, economically devastating and systematically oppressing the Sindhi nation.” He further alleged that under the “Green Pakistan Initiative,” the Pakistani military was occupying hundreds of thousands of acres of land in Sindh.
SRA’s statements reflect the resentment against Punjabis and the ongoing protest in Sindh against the diversion of Indus River water through a network of six newly developed canals under the “Green Pakistan Initiative” (GPI). On February 15, 2025, Punjab Chief Minister Maryam Nawaz Sharif and Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Asim Munir inaugurated an ambitious agriculture initiative to irrigate barren land in Punjab’s Cholistan area. Leaders and workers of various nationalist parties and groups launched protests across the Sindh province, provoking a heavy-handed crackdown by state Forces.
Similarly, during the “Sindh Rawadari March” of October 2024, a heavy crackdown had been launched against leaders and workers of various nationalist parties and groups in many of Sindh’s districts. The “Sindh Rawadari March protest was launched to condemn the extrajudicial killing of Dr. Shahnawaz, who had been accused of sharing blasphemous posts on social media and was shot dead under mysterious circumstances during a gun battle with the Police in Mirpurkhas on September 19. Following an inquiry into the killing, Sindh Home Minister Ziaul Hassan Lanjar acknowledged, on September 25, 2024, that the Police had “staged the encounter.”
While the state authorities have been busy suppressing the voice of Sindhi nationalists, criminals run rampage in the province, especially in Karachi. As in preceding years, the crime wave continued through 2024, claiming the lives and properties of 1,503 people, including women, children and law-enforcement officials, accordingto a January 1, 2025, report quoting the Karachi Police. Robbers killed 106 people, including an Army officer, a retired commando, Police officials, engineers, security guards and women. Around 300 others were wounded in firing during robberies. Though the City Police claimed a 21 per cent reduction in crimes in 2024 compared to the previous year, street crime was rampant. The Citizens-Police Liaison Committee’s (CPLC) statistics for January to November 2024 recorded 66,530 street crimes in Karachi alone, an average of 6,048 crimes a month or 199 a day. These included the theft and snatching of 1,913 cars: an average of 174 a month and six a day. In the same period 46,404 motorcycles were stolen or snatched: an average of 4,219 a month and 139 a day; and 18,213 phones were also snatched: an average of 1,683 a month or 55 a day. Meanwhile, frustrated by the increasing crime, some Karachi residents took matters into their own hands and confronted the criminals, killing 21 and injuring 65.
According to a Karachi Police report of March 4, 2025, Karachi records more than ten thousand street crime incidents in the first two months of the year. Despite a 28.18 per cent decline compared to the same period in 2024, Karachi recorded 10,356 street crimes, in which twelve citizens were killed and 41 injured. As many as 2,806 mobile phones, 306 cars and 7,244 motorcycles were stolen or snatched. This yielded averages of 48.4 incidents of mobile phone snatching, five cars thefts and 125 motorcycle thefts a day.
While Karachi has seen a significant containment of terrorist violence, the security environment remains fraught, with authorities struggling against sectarian assertions and a sustained crime wave. Within the wider environment of political and economic crisis in the country, negative security trends can be expected to amplify.