In Karachi’s tony Clifton, even the city’s security equipment seemed to need protection.
A non-operational distribution box—part of the Karachi Safe City surveillance network—was stolen from Seaview apartment on November 6 and found seven days later, on Thursday.
Police are still puzzled over the curious heist, which unfolded in one of the most heavily guarded neighbourhoods in the city, where the city’s elite reside. The missing box, worth hundreds of thousands of rupees, was meant to power surveillance cameras watching over the seaside stretch near Sea Rock Apartments.
According to Deputy Inspector General (DIG) South Asad Raza, the theft was reported to local police on 6 November. “This was a non-energised, non-operational pole site near Sea Rock Apartments at Seaview,” he said, adding that the equipment was later recovered from a nearby empty plot.
Eyewitnesses recalled seeing a vehicle with a crane operating at the site hours before the disappearance. “A vehicle with a crane was witnessed working on the pole before the theft was reported,” a staff member from a nearby hotel told investigators.
The police now believe that same vehicle might have been used to unbolt and lift the heavy metal box.
Raza noted that stealing the distribution box “is not an easy task”, given its size and weight. Yet the area offered ideal cover: a “completely blacked-out” stretch with no streetlights and no functioning CCTV cameras except for a single one at Sea Rock Apartments—which only captured the parking lot.
With no alarm system installed at the pole and no clear footage available, detectives have little to go on besides the grainy glimpse of a crane and the mystery of who wanted a non-functional piece of equipment.
Following the theft, the Safe City Project’s Director General, Asif Ijaz Sheikh, confirmed that all cameras in the area were taken offline. The distribution box, he said, contained technical components worth several lakhs.
The police have written to the Cantonment Board Clifton (CBC) and the Karachi Metropolitan Corporation (KMC), urging them to restore streetlights.
