Author: Ahmad Jahid Atal
Afghan National Security Forces (ANSF) have been engaged in a notorious and undefined battle with armed opposition groups backed, funded and supplied by regional intelligence agencies, since almost past 20 year.
Provinces falling into the hands of Taliban, expansion of territorial control by armed opposition groups, ISIS’s expanded presence and an unprecedented death toll of Afghan security forces on daily basis are indicators of deterioration of overall security situation in the country.
While the security and intelligence forces are vividly engrossed by terrorist activities, street crimes are nourishing, hitting a record level of criminal activities in major cities including the capital city, Kabul.
Armed robberies, kidnapping, weapon/human/money trafficking and other minor street crimes graph is experimenting its record peak levels, as the security and intelligence forces have been unable to subside the crimes.
Shocked by an armed robbery, Mohmmad Rafi, a student of one of the private universities in Afghanistan says that its is hard for him to go back to home from university at 8 pm. “ It was around 08:15 pm in summer nights and I was heading towards home from university. I hopped into the backseat of a shared taxi and the car drove off. Including the driver there were three persons, one in the front and one in the backseat. As we drove around 400 meters away from where I was picked up, the man siting beside me drew his gun from his back and aimed at my head, while the man in front seat pointed a black military sharp knife to my eye and told me to hand all my belonging over to them. As I was anxiously looking my pockets for things they kept beating me and shouting [HURRY UP, WE DON’T HAVE TOO MUCH TIME]. I was forcefully dropped down from the car soon after they got everything, including my laptop, mobile, purse, hand-watch and a golden-ring which I was supposed to give it as a gift to one of my relatives on that night. This incident left me with a desperate situation due to which I couldn’t join my class for almost two weeks.” he added.
Mohammad Rafi isn’t the single victim of such horrible incident, dozens of capital-residing Afghans are suffering from similar terrific incidents on daily basis.
Another citizen of the capital, who asked to remain anonymous, said “ I don’t know what exactly is going on in this city. You can’t carry cash with yourself, you can’t drive a relatively costly vehicle, you can’t walk on the streets after 7 pm, even in the capital. Is there any person responsible for this?”.
According to the reports from confirmed source, on an average basis 13 vehicles are being stolen in every 24 hours in Kabul city and its suburbs.
