BAHAWALPUR, March 1: Scores of motorcyclists faced a great deal of inconvenience on Tuesday when they were challaned and fined Rs100 each for violating the government's directive to wear helmets.
Traffic police officials seemed more active on the first day of the implementation of the directive than the routine days. The officials challaned motorcyclists at every crossing and intersection (chowk) under section 19 of the PPC and imposed fines on the violators who were asked to deposit Rs100 each with a prescribed bank branch and obtain their registration books.
Meanwhile, people from a cross-section of society protested the government's decision of binding the two-wheelers to wear helmets. They say shopkeepers have raised prices of helmets within the last few days and there is no check on this practice.
The affected people have demanded that the government should extend the date for the purchase of helmets and make sure that the shopkeepers do not charge arbitrarily high rates. The traffic police officials said thousands of rupees were deposited with the government treasury in the shape of fines on the first day.
ELECTION: Five members of the Bahawalpur High Court Bar Association executive council were declared elected unopposed on Tuesday after the withdrawal of a candidate, Malik Khalid, from the contest.
This raised the number of unopposed-elected office-bearers to 11. Six had been declared elected on Monday, the day for filing of nomination papers. Those elected unopposed were Ghazanfar Ali Khan, Muhammad Yasin, Shafi Muhammad Tariq, Rana Hassan Ali Mahmood and P.A. Farooqi.
Meanwhile, the scrutiny of nomination papers was carried out by the election board, which declared all the papers valid. Now there will be a contest for three offices i.e. the president, secretary-general and finance secretary for which two candidates each are in the run.
The final list of candidates will be notified on Wednesday (today) while polling is scheduled to be held on March 26. According to Election Board chairman Akbar Ansari, the Pakistan Bar Council has suspended the order of the provincial bar about the fate of 200 members who submitted their dues after Dec 15, 2004.
ANTI-POLIO: The three-day anti-polio campaign was launched here on Tuesday. Around 500,000 children up to five years of age would be administered drops during the campaign for which the health department has constituted 300 teams. DCO Imran Ahmad inaugurated the campaign by administering polio drops to children at the Public Health Nursing School.
