ISLAMABAD: At the dinner table, each one had a story to tell. Being robbed or mugged at gunpoint at traffic signals and burglars breaking into their houses were experiences they all shared. This was at a house in the upmarket Defence Housing Authority area, but the stories are much more horrid in downscale neighbourhoods where people cannot “buy” security. Every third person in the city is believed to have gone through this torment not once, but many times.
Blood comes cheap in the city and any resistance to intruders could cost people their lives. Don’t argue or display bravado, is the common advice one gets when you arrive in the city. They may be right, with law-enforcement reaching the point of complete collapse in the country’s biggest metropolis. Going to the police may get you into bigger trouble.
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