New cars cost the government From the Newspaper Published May 13, 2012 comments Join our Whatsapp Channel Add Dawn as a trusted source THE sordid side of these snazzy vehicles in and around Karachi’s ‘Red Zone’ area is reflected in the fake ‘number plates’ they all display — AFR or Applied For Registration — some of them since 2010. Are the police making an effort to book the owners for not registering their cars? It appears not, as the law-enforcers themselves admit privately that scores, if not hundreds, of such vehicles are visible on Karachi’s roads. More than three dozen unregistered vehicles were caught on camera by this photographer alone. Clearly, the vehicle owners are loath to part with money to pay the vehicle registration tax or the excise duty on new cars, or to diminish prospects of a good resale value. But why is the cash-strapped Sindh government reluctant to crack down on the offenders and let them get away with holding back tens of millions of rupees in revenue generated through taxes? Indeed, many government vehicles themselves are unregistered — presumably the government itself fears no brush with the law.There are other issues of immediate public concern as well: in a hit-and-run accident caused by an unregistered vehicle it is nearly impossible to trace the latter and bring charges against the driver. One may ask why the AFR 2010 and AFR 2011 number plates do not give way to AFR 2012 number plates considering that no case can be registered against the owner of the vehicle displaying the latter. But then, the half-hearted attempts of the authorities to impound such vehicles speak volumes for the brazenness of drivers who can rely on the inefficiency of our police force.—Text and photos by Anis Hamdani
