ISLAMABAD, Jan 11: Beware! there are thieves on the prowl in the compound of the office of the deputy superintendent of police traffic (DSP-Traffic). And the traffic police chief is not responsible to prevent thefts within the boundaries of his office.

The gentleman in uniform even refused to initiate any inquiry, leave alone take some direct action, when one such incident was reported to him.

The unfortunate situation came to light when a local journalist visited the traffic office a couple of days ago to collect his licence. As he diverted his car from the main road to the parking lot, he was stopped and asked to collect the token.

After going through with the exercise, the gentleman drove his car to the parking lot. After parking the car, he went to the nearby traffic office to collect his licence, leaving behind his mobile phone. Unfortunately, he forgot to roll up the window, which he had lowered to get the parking token!

Within 10 minutes he came back only to find out that the cell phone was missing from the seat. He approached the man giving tokens to the motorists to enquire if he had seen anyone stealing his cellular phone from the car. But he was told that they were responsible only for the safety of the vehicle and not what was inside it. He tried to argue his point, but soon realised that it would be a futile exercise. He also approached a constable, but the answer was not much different.

Boiling with frustration he met the in charge of the office and explained the whole situation to him. He told him that since he was in a hurry, he forgot to roll up the window. The point he tried to drive home to the officer sounded very simple and logical. The whole parking lot is not more than 30 yards wide and almost as much in length. There were more than 10 officials of Islamabad traffic police of varied ranks present in different corners of the parking lot at the time.

Moreover, some more officials almost always watch the parking lot from the open doors or windows of their offices almost adjacent to the parking lot.

The DSP Traffic, however, totally failed to grab the point in the argument and flatly said it was not their responsibility to look after items inside some ‘insecure’ vehicle and advised the man to lodge an FIR with the Margalla police station.

So, the visitors to the place should clearly understand that if some thieves are operating within the limits of the Islamabad traffic police offices then the traffic police are not responsible to take any preventive measure or make some efforts to arrest them.