KARACHI: Vehicle registration in a day ordered: Anti-car lifting steps reviewed
By Our Staff Reporter
KARACHI, June 12: The Excise and Taxation Department has been directed to complete the registration and issuance of standardized registration plates for vehicles in a single day to facilitate the people, failing which action against the officials concerned would be taken.
These directives were issued by the Sindh Governor, Mohammedmian Soomro, during his visit to the Anti-Car Lifting Cell (ACLC) on Wednesday.
He was also given a detailed briefing at the ACLC with the help of statistics and analytical reports about carjacking by the Inspector General of Police, Sindh, Syed Kamal Shah; Capital City Police Chief, Asad Jehangir and SSP Abdur Razzaque Cheema, in- charge of ACLC.
Besides issuing various directives to curb the menace of carjacking and motorcycle-lifting, the governor directed the E&T department to register vehicles and issue their number plates within a day.
Any violation of directives, carelessness or negligence in this regard will not be tolerated, he warned.
He also issued directives for a sufficient number of registration books and number plates to be made available at the E&T office so that no excuse could be given for any delay.
He ordered the authorities to identify the functionaries of E&T department involved in forging documents and fake number plates of vehicles, and strictly directed that the computerized record of vehicles should not be passed on to any irrelevant person.
The governor asked for a thorough examination of particulars of buyers of vehicles at the time of registration or transfer.
Discussing measures for preventing incidents of vehicle theft and snatching, the governor said that the manufacturers must ensure special security system arrangements, including double- lock feature in vehicles. It was observed that vehicles with a weak security system are the ones stolen the most.
He also stressed on the use of double lock in motorcycles and said that the manufacturers should make the essential provision of this system.
He said that citizens should be informed at the time of purchasing any vehicle that they must ensure the existence of a proper security system in vehicles. He said that the secured entry of engine and chassis number, besides secret codes for identification of vehicles, should be ensured by the manufacturers. Lacunas in the insurance system should also be removed, he added.
Mohammedmian Soomro issued further directives for the effective implementation of sand-blasting procedure with regard to identification number of vehicles, registration of all the motor workshops and their effective monitoring, besides deploying police functionaries in plain clothes at different places to prevent vehicle theft and snatching. He suggested conducting surveillance at all exit and entry points of Karachi using zoom cameras.
Soomro also directed that the ban of plying of vehicles on ‘open letter’ be strictly implemented and the number plates of motorcycles and special registration numbers should also be standardized.
He expressed concern over reports of motorcycle snatching in Sanghar and Shikarpur districts, and directed the officials concerned to take action in this regard. As regards issuance of NOC for vehicles leaving the city for transportation and other purposes, the governor ordered conducting of essential physical checking of the vehicles. He said that strict action should also be taken against those who buy stolen vehicles.
Earlier, the SSP ACLC, Abdur Razzaque Cheema, gave a briefing to the governor. He said that a constant decline is witnessed in the incidents of carjacking since 1992, with a proportionate rise in the number of registered vehicles.
Although the number of vehicles being taken away needed to be contained, the proportionate rate of carjacking with the volume of registered four-wheelers had shown a frequent decline, he added.
Referring to the figures compiled by the Citizen-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC), Mr Cheema said that in 1992, the registered number of vehicles were 67,706 and the bandits took away 3,262 vehicles. The percentage of the taken-away vehicles comes to 4.82 in 1992. This percentage dropped to 1.77 in the year 2000, when bandits took away 4,230 four-wheelers out of the 239,110 registered vehicles.
The figures shows a 3.05pc proportionate decline since 1992 to 2000 in incidents of carjacking, he added.
Giving the break-up, Mr Cheema said that if carjacking incidents were seen in the context of the increase in the number of registered vehicles, it turned out to be 4.82pc in 1992, 4.22pc in 1993, 4.27pc in 1994, 4.42pc in 1995, 3.06pc in 1996, 3.45pc in 1997, 3.64pc in 1998, 1.81pc in 1999 and 1.77pc in the year 2000.
He said that the figures showed significant reduction in carjacking incidents in 1999 and 2000, as compared to the preceding years.
The SSP ACLC disclosed that the carjackers transported the taken-away vehicles out of the city using the metalled road network for which three points — Dhabeji, 54 kilometres on Super Highway and Mochko — had been manned.
Ghagghar Phatak on National Highway and the road running near KANUPP would also be manned with police and rangers in the near future, he said, adding that these measures would help control the transportation of stolen vehicles out of the city.
Besides, he suggested that the people should be advised to use a better system of door and steering locks in vehicles. People using Suzuki Cultus, Toyota 2.0D, Toyota Corolla, Toyota Hilux, Honda City, Honda Civic, etc, should install anti-vehicle theft alarm and other devices.
Motorcycle users should also install anti-theft electronic devices, Mr Cheema urged.
Car owners should also be educated through a media campaign to get engine/chassis numbers sand-blasted on front and rear windscreens and all four side-screens of the vehicles. The practice of using vehicles on open-letters should be banned, Cheema maintained.
He said that the E&T department should provide standard registration plates and all others should be banned. There should be a national and provincial database of all vehicles registered in the province.
Re-registration of vehicles should be banned in the entire country, except for vehicles auctioned by the government. Imported vehicles should not be registered until their bills of entry have been duly verified from the port authorities concerned, he suggested.
He was of the view that these measures, if applied, would help reduce carjacking and theft incidents drastically.
He said that during the period of Jan-May 2002, 2,453 vehicles were snatched or stolen, of which 619 were recovered. The ACLC arrested 223 culprits, detected 208 cases and recovered 123 four- wheelers and 63 two-wheelers from suspects.
He revealed that as a result of investigation, 700 cases of 4- wheelers and 4,000 cases of 2-wheelers of multiple registrations have come to the surface. The ACLC has got evidence of allotting the same number to several vehicles, as well as the same chassis and engine numbers to many vehicles at a time. The ACLC also recovered nine fake number plates and 15 forged registration books during the last five months.
Also present on the occasion were Chief Secretary, Javed Ashraf Hussain; Principal Secretary, Akhtar Zamin; Home Secretary, Mukhtar Ahmed; DIGs Tariq Jamil and Fayyaz Leghari, besides other officials of the police, E&T and the finance department.
