Claim: Inspector General of Sindh Police, Ghulam Nabi Memon, claimed in a statement reported by ARY News that Karachi has a relatively lower crime rate compared to other cities in the world.
Fact: According to data from the UNODC and crowd-sourced global statistics, Karachi is not one of the safer cities in the world.
On 19 October 2022, ARY News reported that Inspector General (IG) of Sindh Police Ghulam Nabi Memon, in a speech to a delegation of the Council of Economics and Energy Journalists (CEEJ), claimed that the crime rate in Karachi is low compared to other cities around the world.
Fact or Fiction?
Numbeo.com crowd-sources statistical data from more than 6900 cities around the world to compile a comprehensive global crime index on the city level. Karachi ranks 326th out of 453 cities, placing it much below the median. The average crime index score of all the cities included is 47.8, while Karachi’s is much higher (worse), at 54.
Further, the United Nations Office on Drugs and Crime (UNODC) maintains the largest online database of global crime statistics, including homicide rates on the city level in 119 cities, although they do not include Karachi. The average homicide rate in the cities included in their data was 8.6 homicides for every 100,000 residents per year. The median murder rate i.e. the murder rate of the city ranked 60th out of 119, was 2.5 murders for every 100,000 residents per year. 431 murders were reported in Karachi in 2019 and the official population count stood at 15 million in 2017. Assuming the population grew to 16 million by 2019 places the homicide rate at 2.69, which is worse than the median and mean homicide rates of all cities included in UNODC’s data.
Virality
The claim was shared by one of the leading news organizations in the country. On Facebook the post received 1200 interactions and was shared 56 times. It was also shared here, and received 805 interactions and was shared 17 times. ARY’s Facebook page has 24 million followers. The same claim was also shared here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
On Twitter, the tweet received over 200 interactions and was shared with 5 million followers.
Conclusion: Karachi does not have a low crime rate compared to other cities.