Maintaining law and order: Over 200 held for violating pillion riding ban

Magistrates grant bail to 100, order police to return motorcycles

KARACHI: After the police arrested around 200 people and seized around 100 motorcycles for violating the ban on pillion riding, judicial magistrates granted on Sunday bail to 100 of them.

The ban on pillion riding came into effect on Saturday evening and will continue till Muharram 11 to maintain law and order in the light of Ashura.

Two judicial magistrates, in districts East and Central, performing special duty on the holiday, released on bail 62 people against a surety of Rs5,000 each. All of them were arrested Saturday night and their bikes were impounded, a court staffer informed The Express Tribune. Similarly, a magistrate at Malir courts released 38 people against the same surety.



On the directions of the Sindh High Court, one judicial magistrate in each of the districts keeps a court open on the weekend and on gazetted holidays to ensure uninterrupted legal proceedings in criminal cases.

The magistrates also ordered the police to hand over the released persons their seized motorcycles, said the staffer, adding that the suspects were brought from different police stations of the city. Around 100 bikes were impounded during the crackdown, according to reports.

Cases against the released persons were registered under Section 188 of the Pakistan Penal Code. The section reads that whoever knowingly disobeys an order promulgated by a lawfully empowered public servant can be punished with imprisonment or with fine, the intensity of which will depend upon the nature of the crime. Of the total people arrested by the police, 42 were from District Central and 38 from Malir, confirmed the relevant SSPs.

Earlier, Sindh IG Allah Dino Khawaja had said that although these kinds of prohibitions cause inconvenience to the public, there was no other way as they were needed to ensure security and fight terrorism during Muharram.

Talking to Express News, Khawaja said most of the targetted killings and other terrorism activities are carried out using motorcycles, which is why a ban on pillion riding for a specific time is crucial and helps tackle crime.

He had explained that the ban had to be enforced earlier than planned this year because of the sectarian attacks that occurred in Gulsitan-e-Jauhar and Gulshan-e-Iqbal Friday night, in which one person was killed and three others were injured.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 10^th, 2016.