Karachi’s ‘chor’ bazaar: an overview

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One of the biggest markets of the city, Shershah Kabari Bazaar is famous for its easy availability of machine parts and scrap material sold here.

Original car parts are available in Kabari Bazaar or scap market, regardless of the model or make. In fact, buyers are known to come here from India, Afghanistan, Iran and other parts of the world to buy spares for cars not manufactured locally, commercially imported, or have gone out of production.

Spare parts of European and US made vehicles even those from 1960s and 70s can be dug up in this market.

Readily on hand are the spares of popular Japanese and Korean brands while those of Mercedes and BMWs are also available.

Unfortunately, this also means that a lot of car parts available here have been taken out of stolen vehicles.

Engines, tyres, doors, windows and windshield glasses, CNG kits, dash board, LCD screens, air conditioners, petrol tanks, in fact a completely dismembered car can be resurrected from this scrap market, sources told The News.

A survey of the market revealed that there are more than 3,000 shops and about 2,300 stalls that sell various machine parts. Moreover, Quality Godown is biggest warehouse in the market that has various machineries. Also, there are 10 weighing scales available here.

There are also various teashops and eateries along with few mosques. The market is in the jurisdiction of two police stations, Pak Colony and Shershah.

Chacha Abdul Rehman, who has had a shop in Shershah since 1956, told The News that the bazaar existed even before partition but became popular in the latter half of the 1950s, when there was no Miran Naka Bridge. Thus the way to get across the Lyari River was through an unpaved route that led one to Shershah. “People used to come here in tongas (single horse carriage) and there used to be a tonga stand here,” he added.

He said that owing to trade in the area via tongas, two shops opened up in Shershah that dealt in the bearings used in the tonga wheels. Eventually, people set up shops here that sold parts of various vehicles — most importantly tonga parts and its decorative items. At the time, there were about five to seven shops.

It was during Z.A. Bhutto’s regime in 1970s that the Miran Naka Bridge was constructed. This made the market all the more accessible. After the bridge was constructed goods coming from ship breaking also started selling here.

Other shop keepers of the market said that previously, household items were also sold here but after 1980, the sale of parts from scrapped vehicles became more popular here. Slowly, the sale of household items declined and eventually ended and only spare parts were available here.

Meanwhile, some shop owners, on condition of anonymity, revealed that many traders working in Shershah Kabari Bazaar have contacts with criminals who come and sell spare parts here. Furthermore, these criminals are known to be in touch with notorious gangsters such as Rehman Dakait and Ghaffar Zikri. Such shops keepers have spaces reserved for the looted property that they purchase. Some of these gangsters are known to extort million of rupees from the shopkeepers and failure to pay them off results in robbery. Complaints have been registered against them but nothing has been done so far.

Many of these shopkeepers guarantee that if a buyer wants a spare part for latest model, he must book and pay in advance after which the part is then provided to him after a period of two to three days.Some traders in Shershah Kabari Bazaar also deal in spares of luxury cars. They have contacts in Dubai that can ship required spare part from the numerous scrap yards there on board trawlers that regularly ply between Dubai and Karachi port.

The Kabari Bazaar traders are also major buyers of Dubai scrap. They buy in bulk the scrapped engines, gearboxes, suspensions, and seats imported from UAE, and sell these on lucrative profit margins.

dawn.com