Time Stolen: Adyala Watch Shop Heist Leaves Owner Devastated

Asem Mustafa Awan

Rawalpindi: In the stillness of night, under the dim glow of streetlights, a watch shop at Dhaman Mor near Main Adiala Road, Rawalpindi, was stripped of more than just timepieces it was robbed of a man’s entire livelihood.

Muhammad Arsalan, son of Muhammad Sultan and a resident of Mumtaz Colony, Adiala Road, locked his modest watch shop at 8 p.m. as usual, unaware that darkness would bring with it the cruel hands of fate. When he returned the next morning, the scene that met his eyes was one of chaos and heartbreak. The locks were broken. The shop had been ransacked.

Gone were 450 watches, along with a laptop, an iPad, an iPod, 12 rings, and Rs. 19,000 in cash. The magnitude of the theft ran into lakhs. But beyond the monetary value, Arsalan says what’s been stolen is his future. “I am a poor man. This shop was everything to me. After the theft, I am completely destitute,” he pleaded in his formal complaint at Sadar Baruni Police Station.

Arsalan’s voice trembles not just with loss, but with a desperate call for justice. “I built this business with whatever little I had. It was my source of bread. Now, I am left with nothing — not even hope,” he told this scribe.Despite the registration of the First Information Report (FIR), and the serious nature of the crime, no suspects have been identified or detained. Arsalan has made a heartfelt appeal to CPO Rawalpindi, urging him to intervene personally, trace the culprits, and help recover the stolen goods.

The community, too, is rattled. This brazen burglary, executed in a busy area just off Main Adiala Road, raises critical questions about night-time patrolling, surveillance, and the responsiveness of local law enforcement.

“Such incidents are a reflection of growing lawlessness,” said a nearby shopkeeper. “If a man’s entire business can vanish overnight, what security do any of us have?”

As the investigation remains stalled, this case isn’t just about a robbery — it’s about the vulnerability of small business owners who build their lives on modest dreams, only to have them crushed in silence.

Unless authorities take swift and effective action, “time” may not be the only thing stolen on Adiala Road — public trust might follow next.