Drive against traffic violations to continue: Durrani
Thursday, December 04, 2008
By Farooq Baloch
Karachi
The month-long campaign against traffic violations has been extended beyond December 3 given that recent developments affected the outcome of the drive, DIG Traffic Wajid Ali Khan Durrani told The News. However, he did not mention the new end date, maintaining that they will continue the drive till desired results are achieved.
On November 3, the traffic police launched a month-long campaign against traffic violations particularly against unregistered vehicles and those plying with tinted glasses, fancy number plates, party flags, revolving lights and illegal distinguishing marks. The drive initially gained momentum, and was expected to be in full swing during last ten days, but it could not deliver desired results due to various factors.
For one, the traffic police engaged at least 700 policemen to facilitate IDEAS-2008, an international arms exhibition held from November 24 to November 28. Additionally a significant number of traffic police were deployed around the Sindh Assembly building for the entire last week. Due to this change in deployment, almost all civic activities in the city were halted, followed by multiple incidents of violence that began on Saturday. All these developments adversely affected the outcome of the campaign.
According to the official statistics from Capital City Police (Traffic), from November 3 to November 30, as many as 26,267 offenders were booked for offences that were covered during the drive. Traffic police also detained 1,429 unregistered vehicles in this period. The details revealed that 13,685 people were booked for tinted glasses, another 61 were booked for plying vehicles with party flags, 20 offenders were booked for carrying illegal distinguishing marks on their number plates, 8,903 people were booked for bearing fancy number plates on their vehicles and 74 were booked for installing revolving lights. The number of people booked for bogus AFR number plates during the drive was 3,524, of which 1,426 vehicles were detained.
When asked if they also booked drivers and owners of 4WD vehicles, an official said that they have booked 1,700 offenders who own 4WD vehicles. Giving details, he said that, during their campaign so far, the vehicles booked include 15 Range Rovers, 315 Parados, 444 Pajeros, 239 Land Cruisers, 248 Nisan Petrols, 49 Discoverys, 210 Kia Sports and 180 Toyota Vigos.