RAWALPINDI: A special magistrate on Wednesday summarily convicted four shopkeepers of illegally selling police and army uniforms.

Earlier, in a crackdown on unauthorised sale of uniforms of law enforcement agencies, the police arrested the shopkeepers.

The police team raided ‘Punjab Police Store’ Jhanda Chichi and seized the army and police uniforms and badges being sold illegally.

The shop owner could not produce any permission for selling the uniform.

Later, the accused was produced before the special magistrate who imposed a fine of Rs18,000 on him after a summary trial.

In another move, the Cantonment police also seized military and police uniforms, badges of different ranks and shoes being illegally sold in the cantonment areas.

Though none of the shops involved in the unauthorised sale of uniforms was sealed, three shopkeepers were arrested and summarily convicted under the new law.

After the Army Public School attack on December 16 in which the TTP terrorists came in military uniform, the Punjab government had ordered a crackdown on unauthorised sale of military uniform.

In garrison city of Rawalpindi, several shops have been selling Army, Police, Rangers and Frontier Constabulary uniforms.

The authorised shops, selling uniforms, caps, shoes, badges, belts, rain coats and jackets, are located at Railway Road Saddar, in the limit of cantonment police

The shopkeepers had been directed to keep the copy of CNIC and data of their customers.

Published in Dawn, April 9th, 2015

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