KARACHI: More than 5,000 vehicles being used by various departments of the Sindh government, including police, are not registered with the excise and taxation department, which is not only a stark violation of the relevant laws but also pose security threats, it emerged on Sunday.

A study carried out by a group of Karachiites under the newly-organised Citizens Trust Against Crime (CTAC) with the assistance of the Sindh police, traffic authorities and the Citizen-Police Liaison Committee (CPLC) also identified violations of seven different categories of registration number plates which were instrumental in the perpetuation of serious crimes and terrorism in the metropolis.

“The study found that about 4,000 to 6,000 vehicles in use of various institutions of provincial government, including police, are not registered with the excise and taxation (E&T) department,” said a source citing findings of the study.

“These vehicles pay no taxes, use self-styled registration number plates and some have even been found involved in criminal activities and violence. This is indeed a very serious issue and that is why the Sindh High Court has been moved for remedy,” said the source.

He said the database of the E&T department was also found inadequate as it did not have record on these government vehicles. It came to the fore during the study that the available data did not even include complete information on the vehicles owned by the government and its various departments including police, which could give an opportunity to criminals and terrorists to use such flaws in the system.

“Due to security threats the Sindh government usually issues cover number plates for its vehicles, which are similar to private number plates and are aimed at disguising the government vehicles,” he said.

“But it was found that more than a thousand such cover number plates have been issued which has added to the confusion and risk of their falling into the hands of criminals.

“It doesn’t sound sensible to issue distinctive government number plates and then issue as many cover number plates to disguise the identity of the original ones. A much better security plan could have been designed,” he said.

Citing details of the study, he referred to numbering system adopted by the E&T department, which violated the very concept of unique number for every vehicle.

“For instance, it was found that GS-0002 has been issued to four different towns of Sindh — Shikarpur, Mirpurkhas, Jacobabad and Shikarpur. The same has been done with hundreds of other numbers,” he added.

“From the study, seven different categories of number plate violations have been identified, which are instrumental in the perpetuation of serious crimes and terrorism in the city,” he said.

“The first category includes the vehicles carrying purported government numbers, the record of which is not available with the E&T or any other government department. The second category has vehicles which carry government number plates that had previously been allotted to other vehicles, which is also against the law,” he said.

The third one, he said, included the vehicles with private registration numbers impersonating the government numbers due to their green background, hence pretending to be government vehicles while the fourth included the vehicles using unlawful personalised number plates, which were not registered with the E&T department.

“The fifth category of vehicles include plaques or plates which either completely or partially cover number plates, hence making it impossible to identify such vehicles in case they are involved in crimes, and the sixth included the vehicles that carry illegal number plates, which are in the format that is not used in Pakistan,” he added.

“The seventh category included the vehicles which are unregistered and carry the number plates using ‘applied for registration’ or ‘AFR’ to make it appear as if the vehicles’ owners will get their registered number plates very soon. However, it leaves such individuals at complete liberty to commit crimes and remain untraceable,” he said.

Published in Dawn, June 16th, 2014