Fake registration, misuse of vehicles unearthed

Lahore NAB officers came under light a few months ago for allegedly using seized luxurious vehicles

LAHORE:

In August 2017, a day prior to former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s rally against his disqualification, a blast in truck blast on Outfall Road left at least 46 people injured.

Sharif’s rally was supposed to pass through said road. When the investigations into the incident were launched, serious negligence on part of police as well mega scandal worth billions of rupees had surfaced.

It came forth that the suspicious truck out of which a foul smell had been emanating was parked for a few days. Nearby people had filed a complaint against the truck before Lower Mall police. However, the police had typically decided not to take any action.

The other revelation was that the truck was registered against a fake number. When the Counter Terrorism Department (CTD) dig into the matter, a mega scandal of forged and fake auction of thousands of such vehicles was revealed.

Investigations by Punjab Anti-Corruption Establishment (ACE) claimed that there were at least 4,000 vehicles were registered on fake documents into the excise department. It had caused at least Rs300 billion loss to the national exchequer.

This misuse of vehicles was just one example of scam involving vehicles and government department.

A few months ago, Lahore National Accountability Bureau (NAB) had come under spotlight for its officers using the luxurious vehicles, seized as case properties, into personal use.

There was another department, the police, which had a huge collection of vehicles seized in its establishments that were undocumented.

A section of law allowed police to seize the vehicles when the driver could not present documents against it. Such seized vehicles were returned to the owner on the court orders after showing of the required documents.

Police over the years had seized thousands of such vehicles. There was a large number of such vehicles that had been standing in police station premises without any ownership claims.

A citizen on a cursory visit to any police station throughout the province could spot these vehicles parked in the open. An overwhelming majority of such vehicles were in a very dilapidated condition.

No database of such vehicles was available in the police department. Such vehicles were recorded manually in a ‘roznamcha’, registered in every police station across Punjab.

If a person wanted to know about a vehicle that had been impounded a decade earlier, it may become an uphill task as the said individual would have to go through a large number of registers.

Due to non-computerisation of such vehicles, no one knew about the exact number of such vehicles. However, the vehicles were reportedly in thousands.

There were over 700 police stations across Punjab while, on average, at least 20 such vehicles were impounded in one police station annually.

And the count of a decade of such impounded vehicles could possibly go up over 100,000.

As in case of NAB officers using seized luxury vehicles, the issue of the use of unclaimed vehicles by police officers had also surfaced.

There were also few reports that few constables would use motorcycles for patrolling after removing the number plates of such vehicles especially in peripheries.

The use of such unclaimed, unverified and undocumented vehicles in criminal activities, in connivance of certain policemen, could also not be ruled out.

Sources added that there were reports of selling of spare parts as well as accessories of such vehicles.

What lies beneath will come up after a thorough investigation into this matter.

It was a good decision that Punjab IGP Inam Ghani had asked for searching of the owner of the vehicles and also matching these with FIRs. He also asked to conduct auctions.

The need of the hour was to take the matter towards its solution and not just leave it unattended like so many other orders on various issues by successive IGPs.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 31^st, 2021.