KARACHI, Aug 17: Police have lately been harassing people visiting the city’s recreational spots. Such incidents have become a matter of routine on Sundays and other public holidays.

The traffic police extort people visiting Hawkesbay, Sandspit, Clifton, parks and other recreational spots such as Hill Park and Seaview on one pretext or another. Such complaints continue to pour in newspaper offices.

People who recently visited Hawkesbay and Sandspit said the traffic police asked for bribe ranging between Rs500 and Rs700 on the pretext that they were travelling on “off-the-route” hired coaches and vans.

Young couples who visited Seaview and Hill Park alleged police harassed and humiliated them by asking them to show their “Nikahnama” to prove their credentials as man and wife. It is mainly in Hill Park, Seaview and Clifton beach that policemen ask young couples to produce their “Nikahnamas.” Those who have been subjected to such harassment posed the question: “Are husband and wife supposed to carry their Nikahnama whenever they go out of their homes?”

An elderly person told Dawn that when he and his family were going to Hawkesbay for an outing on a hired coach, they were stopped and charged Rs50 at every traffic police section on the plea that the vehicle they were travelling on was an “off-the-route vehicle.”

“We started our journey for Hawkesbay from Saddar on the eve of Independence Day and till we reached our destination we were compelled to pay Rs50 to traffic cops at 10 traffic sections merely on account of travelling on a hired coach which, according to them, did not possess route permit for the Hawkesbay route,” he said.

Another victim of the traffic police’s harassment, who had been secretary of the Regional Transport Authority and also served as an additional commissioner in the city’s former district Central and is still in government service, narrating his recent irritating experience while going for picnic with his family to Hawkesbay, told this reporter that the hired coach on which he, his family and other relatives were going to Hawkesbay was stopped by traffic police at a number of traffic sections and at each traffic section the coach driver was asked to pay Rs50 for plying his vehicle the route for which he did not possess the route permit.

“Wherever our vehicle was stopped enroute to Hawkesbay by traffic cops, the coach driver asked the traffic constable to talk to me. When I disclosed my identity to the cops, they did not ask for money from me or from the coach driver on account of travelling on an “off-the-route” vehicle and also apologized for causing us trouble. But other picnickers who were on their way to Hawkesbay on hired vehicles were forced to pay Rs50 or so at different traffic sections before they were allowed to move ahead towards their destinations.

“It is an unhealthy and unjust trend of punishing people,” he said, adding such harassment tactics by traffic cops would only keep people away from picnic spots. I will definitely bring such unsavoury activities to the notice of the city’s traffic police chief, Saud Mirza,” he said.

A PIA official, who had gone to North Nazimabad after midnight to inquire after the health of his colleague, was signalled to stop his Toyota car by a police mobile near Shipowners College. After policemen checked his car, they asked him to produce the vehicle’s papers, about which he told them that he could not take the papers with him as he had hurry to the house of his friend after he received a message by phone that the friend had some cardiac problem.

He told the policemen that he could show them the papers if someone from among them (policemen) accompanied him to his residence which was hardly a mile from Shipowners College.

The policemen, however, asked him to either pay Rs500 or he would be taken to the area police station for questioning as some murder had taken place in the vicinity.

The threat of being implicated in a murder case worked for the dishonest policemen, and so the PIA official had to grease their palms.

Recently, a police party asked a young man who was strolling in Hill Park with his wife to produce their “Nikahnama,” or else they would be booked on a charge of having illicit relations.

Fortunately,the young man had acquaintances in Jamaat-i-Islami circles.

He immediately rang up the Nazim of a Town administration on his cellular phone apprising him of the police harassment. When the young man asked the policemen to talk to the Nazim, they refused to talk to the Nazim, and quietly walked away.