People are getting mugged and killed despite the ban, showing that the ban on pillion riding is not a solution.
KARACHI: In the wake of the recent wave of sectarian killings in Karachi the Sindh government has yet again imposed a ban on pillion riding from September 11 to 19. This ban has been imposed many times before in order to improve the law and order situation but the situation in Karachi has gone from bad to worse. People are getting mugged and killed despite the ban, showing that the ban on pillion riding is not a solution to the extremely grave law and order situation of the city. It is true that most of the street crimes and targeted killings are perpetrated by men riding motorcycles but the ban is not the right solution.
A large number of Karachiites use motorcycles to go to work and to visit friends and relatives. There are more than 1.2 million registered motorcycles which carry more than two million commuters daily. This ban overlooks the major inconvenience caused to a sizeable chunk of Karachi’s commuting and working population. Taking advantage of the situation, taxi and rickshaw drivers increase their fares.
I would like to ask the authorities why the common people are being punished for a problem that should be resolved by better policing and improved law enforcement. I doubt that equipping the police and Rangers with new sophisticated weapons would assist in restoring peace in the city. What is needed is a proper strategy.
There could be an emergency where two people or more may have to ride a motorcycle, what do they do then? Policemen are busy fleecing people rather than keeping an eye on criminals. In short, we punish those tens of thousands of ordinary citizens who share rides out of necessity because the government is unable to arrest the real culprits through proper law enforcement.
Muhammed Zafir Zia
Published in The Express Tribune, September 13th, 2014.
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