ONE must appreciate the endeavours of the Sindh police to check vehicles whose owners assume that it is their birthright to show contempt of law by using fraudulent, fake, personalised, foreign or fancy number plates.

These unlawful vehicles can be rapidly eliminated if police checks are not done as a one-time drive but as an on-going institutional process. It can be effective only if the police have been trained to know the difference between a lawful and an unlawful number plate, if police have the equipment to immediately check a vehicle’s data from the excise and taxation department’s website and if regular ads are placed in newspapers to describe what exactly is an unlawful number plate or vehicle.

Here is a suggested list for such an ad, that ought to be repeated every few weeks: 1) Vehicle must be registered with the excise and taxation department, and must have paid motor vehicle tax. 2) Number plate must be standard, officially issued, fully readable and not covered by any shield, cover, plate or plaque. 3) Use of fancy, foreign, personal or AFR plates is illegal. A new vehicle must be brought on road, only if it has an officially supplied number plate. 4) Display of weapons from vehicles is illegal. 5) No vehicle must display plates or markings that represent designations such as MNA, MPA, Minister, Judge, Press or Advocate. 6) It is illegal to impersonate government or police vehicles. 7) Use of an official car registration number on more than one car is illegal.

Naeem Sadiq
Karachi

Published in Dawn, January 30th, 2019