Naeem Sadiq
It is more difficult to detect a suspicious looking person as compared to a suspicious looking vehicle. While the former requires some understanding of psychology and human behaviour, the later is a comparatively simple affair, based on an individual’s ability to recognise if the moving object on the road is in fact a vehicle and if it is carrying or not, a registered number plate.
Just to give you an example, I find most politicians very suspicious looking. That is however not a good reason for me to report against them. However each time I leave my house, I easily recognise a large number of vehicles which have either no number plate or an illegal number plate such as “Zinda Hey BB”, ‘Laghari1’, “Durrani 2″, ‘lashari 3”, “Bhutto 4”, “Junagarh 5”, “MNA’, “MPA”, “Chief of jhalayan tribe”, etc etc.
In one interesting case some half a dozen vehicles owned by the same individual carry the same number plate “VII”. Most of these vehicles belong to ministers, parliamentarians and other powerful law breakers of the land. This blatant breach of law is visible to all those hundreds of policemen, who remain dutifully engaged in stopping the two wheelers for extracting their pound of flesh, but whose eyes are carefully trained not to recognise the violating vehicles of the powerful and unlawful urban militants.
These pictures, taken at random in Karachi in the past few weeks, just to give you a feel of the size of the problem. You will also appreciate that most big crime is conducted by big people in big vehicles. So the trick is to go after the big.
We need to begin by prosecuting the small crimes by big people, so that they can never get to the big crimes they will ultimately do otherwise: no number plate, unlawful number plate, any sign such as MPA, that hides the original number plate, armed guards, black tinted glasses etc. Intensive training should then be organised for police force in vehicular recognition, the design, types and need for number plates, what is an illegal number plate, and how to stop, challan and if required confiscate such vehicles.
On a lighter note, a half decent title, and a suitable packaging such as “Access to Road Justice,” would easily qualify the project for a handsome ADB loan.
If only the police were to enforce this very basic and visible violation of law, its respect would go up many times in the eyes of the public, which may then develop some trust in reporting the events that are actually not visible to the police.
ATP Editors Note: These photographs are from Karachi but such violations are found everywhere and the problem is nationwide.
Pakistani leaders and citizens , all love illegal life.They will disappear soon.
Naeem, I appreciate that you brought this menace up for discussion. There could be many reasons why crooks resort to this. One is the elitest culture prevailing where you are respected because you break a law and can get away with it. Another could be you want to avoid paying vehicle registration fees and save some money this waythough this maybe a very crude way.
Or, lastly, this vehicle is used to commit crime and to avoid detection, fake license plate is used. These people can avoid being stopped by constables for ordinary road violations because the poor constable is fearful of losing his job.I have seen vehicles bearing this type of license plates being driven out of contonments not to mention politician’s houses.
Every two bit beraucrat thinks he has the right to a green plate and if he is not entitled to one, he creates one for himself by painting his normally issued plate, green.
What I fail to understand is what are the concerned govt departments doing or is it that they themselves are involved in the same practice. We need to ponder.
Sad but true: the only time we had rule of law (ignoring however biased/discriminatory the law was) in this land was when the Gora Saab ruled us. If you read subcontinental history, its pretty clear we rapidly reverted to our aslihat: every two-bit official uses his/her powers to extort and grab with both hands. Wakih afsos heh keh jaisi azaadi milli aur Goray Saab ka Dunda haTTa to humari aslihat nikal aie.
BTW, minor point, it used to be that plates that said “Junagarh 1”, etc, were official plates issued by the Govt to the former Nawab of Junagarh as a courtesy; don’t know if that is still the case. If so, “Junagarh whatever” could still be a legitimate license plate.
Something i always thought of i should write about. yes Naeem you did it. I would add about the blue revolving light trend which is very common in Hyderabad and interior sindh. either its placed on dashboard like FBI Movies :) or sticked to top. The drivers in these cars are most the time underaged. I am thinking i should also get a plate with “Ordinary Citizen”. This is a mindset which needs to know that they are having psychological disorder. i dotn remember the name of that disorder but symptoms are that people with this disorder usually show off a lot with posters and sounds, plates in this case.
While i was crossing karachi toll plaza, there was a car which i was following had a plate with “AFR-2009” having Green background, the guy at the toll counter let him go. when it was my turn i asked him why did he let him go? he said dont you see its a Government Car (sarkari Gaari). I said i see it, I am sorry ;).
Very nicely written article.
Citizen pressure is the only solution.