LAHORE, March 20: The Punjab Assembly, amid protest and walkout by the opposition, on Monday passed the Provincial Motor Vehicles (amendment) bill banning ‘wheelie’. The violators may be jailed for up to six months and fined up to Rs5,000, while their motorbikes may also be confiscated.
The opposition made an abortive attempt to halt proceedings on the bill by pointing out quorum as it was against the seizure and confiscation of vehicles fearing that the provision might be misused by the police.
It was not ready to accept assurances by Law Minister Raja Basharat and even Deputy Speaker Sardar Shaukat Mazari, who was chairing the session, that the law might be amended if any lacunas were found in the course of its implementation.
Rana Sanaullah of the PML-N wondered that no public transport vehicle was ever seized during the trial of an accident case and confiscated at the time of conviction. He wanted that the vehicle should be released on “sapurdari” to avoid inconvenience to its owner and exploitation by police.
He argued that parents/owners of motorbikes would be harassed in the name of deterrence for juvenile offenders.
“The offender will be fined a maximum Rs5,000 while in case of confiscation, the owner will have to bear a loss of around Rs60,000.”
The law minister said the deterrence was necessary for curbing the offence. He argued that the parents who did not watch what their children do on roads should also suffer for their neglect.
MMA’s Arshad Baggu tried to allay apprehensions of the other opposition members that during summary trial of the offence the police may not be able to misuse the vehicle.
But all opposition MPAs, barring Mr Baggu and his colleague in the MMA Miss Tahira Munir, walked out of the house.
Earlier, the opposition raised the issue of detention of its leaders and workers in the wake of Feb 14 riots when MMA’s Ehsanullah Waqas through a privilege motion sought identification and arrest of those who had put on fire the Punjab Assembly building.
The opposition demanded referral of the motion to the Privileges Committee so that responsibility could be fixed on the officials/agencies who had failed to protect the august house.
The law minister opposed the move urging the chair to pend the motion until a government inquiry on the issue was completed.
Rana Sana questioned that how many more days the government wanted for completing the inquiry. Denying Raja Basharat’s allegation that the opposition was politicising the issue, he alleged that the government was victimising its opponents by registering cases against them.
He regretted that the chief minister’s promise of not detaining any innocent activist even for a single day was not being fulfilled. He complained the law minister was not sitting with him to separate the innocent from lists of the arrested activists.
Having videos of the Feb 14 tragedy, the government needed no other help for determining that who were the real culprits, he added.
Raja Basharat said had there not been evidence against the arrested persons, the courts would not have rejected their bail applications.
Saying many detained people had been released on Rana Sana’s recommendation, he called for restraint for a while to establish the innocence of others.
The law minister made it clear that he could not offer any extra-judicial favour to the opposition.
