Speaking at a press conference in Karachi, Sindh Inspector General of Police Javed Alam Odho noted that since the launch of a renewed crackdown last month, 113 encounters have taken place in the katcha areas, leaving 27 alleged kidnappers dead, 82 injured, and 77 arrested. Another 123 suspects, the authorities said, have surrendered.
While giving credit where due, experience counsels restraint, for Sindh has witnessed many such campaigns rise and fade before, each marked by early success but ultimately undone by structural weaknesses that allow criminal networks to dissolve into the Indus backwaters only to re-emerge once attention shifts elsewhere. Year after year, simple prosecutions never reach the true architects of organised crime, and gangs hide out quietly under the cover of the jungle and jurisdictional loopholes.
Nor is this a problem confined to Sindh alone, as the same script has played out repeatedly along the Sindh-Punjab border, where successive operations by both provinces have yielded dramatic announcements but little lasting change. The two provinces’ police forces still need tedious approvals to cross rivers, while criminals slip past wagons of red tape. As a senior official acknowledged during an earlier operation, by the time authorisation is granted, the gang has often already vanished.
Behind these operational shortcomings lies a human toll that statistics cannot convey. In 2024, a journalist was shot dead in his village of Rounti while sitting beside his daughter, after bandits had allegedly seized his ancestral land and even attempted to burn him alive. Earlier in 2023, the abduction of five Hindu farmers provoked sit-ins so intense that the caretaker provincial government responded by suspending mobile internet services across the katcha belt, accompanied by assurances that any feudal patronage of criminal gangs would be confronted.
In fact, the Sindh Human Rights Commission rightly warned that many abductions in the riverine areas go unreported, with families either too frightened or too sceptical of the justice system to seek official help.
The state cannot punt again. Cross?border chase needs new laws or a unified force. Previous crackdowns in Punjab, killing a dozen dacoits with dozens more surrendering, have not done much to end the menace, underscoring the need for a different approach that includes legal reform to allow seamless cross-border pursuit or the creation of a unified operational framework spanning provincial boundaries. As long as powerful mafias enjoy shelter among big landlords or break bread with officials, the katcha dacoits will continue to roam free. *