Karachi police to crack down on people driving without a licence

KARACHI: The Karachi traffic police have decided to arrest drivers without licences and those carrying fake licences from Monday.

According to traffic police official Muhammad Idrees, the impending crackdown will start from Monday morning and 15 checkpoints have been made for the purpose.

The Karachi traffic police launched several crackdowns this year, which included the helmet-compulsory drive, action against substandard Compress Natural Gas (CNG) cylinders in public and school vans, action against violation of rules and traffic signals, action against vio- lation of one-way traffic, against traveling on the rooftops of public buses and coaches and juvenile drivers.

Futile exercise

Unfortunately, these crackdowns have not yielded fruitful results and the latest campaign against drivers without licences is feared to be another exercise in futility.

However, Idrees insisted on the success of all the campaigns. “These teams will be deployed on Bilawal Chowrangi, Mai Kolachi Road, before Gulbai Underpass, Baldia Town, Sharae Faisal and other places,” he said.

Do the traffic police have the powers to arrest drivers? Idrees responded that the law regarding the arrests was not new.

“It’s already mentioned in Motor Vehicle Ordinance Section 99, under which we can arrest drivers over charges of negligence,” he said, adding that driving without licence was not less than any negligence and it usually became the cause of vehicular fatalities.

“Drivers of commercial vehicles without licences can be put behind bars for maximum two years, whereas drivers of private vehicles can be arrested for maximum of one year,” he said.

The traffic department felt it would have been useless if they had given people more time to get their licences.