KARACHI: Caught in an embarrassing position when the Sindh home department came up with a strong reaction to a “hasty” and “ill-conceived” campaign to arrest and jail the drivers without driving licences, the traffic police authorities on Tuesday postponed the drive to check licences till February next year.

Just a day ago, the authorities had decided to resume the drive, which had suffered a major setback on its launching day amid chaos at driving licence branches, in December.

The fresh announcement came a few hours after a letter from the home department was issued to the Sindh police chief. “The home department has taken a serious view of chaos and severe law and order situation at Nazimabad driving licence branch on November 2, 2015 due to a hasty decision taken by the traffic police, Karachi without evaluating the pros and cons of the campaign,” said additional chief secretary (home) Mohammad Waseem in a letter sent to Sindh IG Ghulam Hyder Jamali.

The letter said the media coverage spoke “volumes” about the “ill-conceived campaign” initiated by the Karachi traffic police by giving only a week to motorists to obtain their driving licences or face imprisonment.

The decision came after the home department sent a strongly worded letter to the police authorities about the ‘hasty’ campaign

“This [home] department is of the view that all public offices should act in a prudent manner [and] strategise policies which are pragmatic and doable,” said the additional chief secretary. “It’s the objective of the government to enforce laws but in a manner that may not create harassment and fear among the masses.”

The campaign to check driving licences to streamline road traffic suffered a major blow on Monday, the day when it was launched, when a huge number of motorists turned up at driving licence branches with many of them failing to find even an application form for driving licence.

The crowd at driving licence branches received the traditional dull response from traffic officials amid lack of proper arrangements at the facilities. The situation turned violent at the Nazimabad branch where applicants were baton-charged.

The scene was equally chaotic at other licence branches — Clifton, Korangi and Baldia Town — where the officials said the number of applicants jumped from the daily average of 100 to over 2,000 and 4,000 at some place.

The situation drew strong criticism from different segments of society over what they said the law enforcement agency’s double standards in dealing with motorists and removing flaws in their own system. It attracted intervention from the higher authorities who postponed the campaign for a month with the directives to extend timings of the driving licence branches besides some other measures to improve the existing arrangements.

It was most probably due to the strongly worded letter from the home department that the traffic police had to postpone the campaign until February next year.

The fresh announcement was made by the additional IG traffic Khadim Hussain Bhatti after visiting licence branches in Korangi, Clifton and Nazimabad where he reviewed arrangements to facilitate maximum number of applications.

“The additional IG also inquired about the hardships being faced by the applicants,” said a statement issued after his visit. “The people expressed satisfaction over the arrangements. For people’s convenience, the campaign to arrest the drivers without licence has been postponed for three months, but they will be charged with fines and penalty.”

Published in Dawn, November 4th, 2015

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