Student cleared after driverless car collides with police vehicle at Islamabad’s D-Chowk

Islamabad Police on Tuesday cleared a computer engineering student whose driverless car collided with a police vehicle at D-Chowk, saying its inquiry “found no evidence of any commission of an offence” and describing the incident as a “genuine mistake” during the testing of an invention.

“This is the future of Pakistan, these are the youth of the country,” Islamabad City Zone Superintendent of Police (SP) Ayaz Hussain said in a video released by Islamabad Police.

The footage showed the driverless car moving along D-Chowk, with interviewer Muhammad Aalijah sitting in the passenger seat and a cameraman filming from the back.

When an Islamabad Police vehicle came into view, the car suddenly turned sharply towards it. Aalijah attempted to stop the vehicle by pulling the handbrake, but the car collided with the police vehicle from the side. The video subsequently gained significant traction on social media.

Speaking in the video, Ayaz said the incident had been thoroughly investigated after the footage began circulating on social media.

“There was a video that went viral on social media, in which a car hit a police car,” he said, adding that Islamabad Police had subsequently “inquired” into the complete incident. “At the end we found no evidence of any commission of offence,” SP Hussain said.

He explained that the vehicle was being used to test an invention and that the collision was not the result of any deliberate wrongdoing. “These are the youth of the country,” Hussain said, describing the student as part of Pakistan’s young generation working on new technology.

He said the student was “genuinely testing an invention” and that what happened was “a genuine mistake”, before inviting Ahsan Zafar Abbasi to explain the technical failure himself.

SP Hussain said Islamabad Police wanted to encourage young people working on innovative projects rather than discourage them when mistakes occurred during the development process.

The police officer’s comments came as Ahsan appeared alongside him in the video to explain how the vehicle was designed and what caused it to veer into the police car.

Zafar, a third-semester computer engineering student at COMSATS University and a resident of Abbottabad, said he had been working in the field since 2018. “I don’t have a lab at home where I can conduct these practical tests,” he said, explaining that the vehicle was part of his project. “This was my project, a driverless car powered by the internet,” he said.

He explained that he had travelled to Islamabad to demonstrate the vehicle during an interview. As the car was being filmed, the cameraman asked him to show the police vehicle in the shot.

Zafar said he was preparing to do so when the wrong control key was pressed. “When I got ready to show the vehicle, rather than the right key getting pressed, the left key got pressed,” he said.

The mistake caused the car to turn left instead of right and into the path of the police vehicle. “Due to the wrong key getting pressed, the car, rather than going right, went left,” Ahsan explained.

He said Islamabad Police had cooperated with him after the incident and contacted him again when the footage began circulating online.

Zafar said he was particularly grateful to Ayaz for taking an interest in how the technology worked rather than simply treating the collision as an accident. “I am going to try to keep working in this field and continuing practical work, and help make Pakistan’s name in the entire world,” Zafar concluded.

Journalist gives clarification

Aalijah, a senior correspondent working for a private news channel who was sitting in the passenger seat when the collision occurred and originally posted the footage, addressed the incident in a separate video posted on Facebook.

Aalijah said he had highlighted Ahsan’s project because he regularly looked for stories about young Pakistanis and their innovations.

He said his intention was to support the student’s creativity and show the potential of young Pakistanis, but that this also meant being honest about what went wrong during the demonstration. “It is my responsibility to appreciate him and tell people that this is Pakistani talent,” Aalijah said, adding that it was also his responsibility to tell people “this happened”.

Aalijah said several people asked him to remove the footage after the incident, including Ahsan, but he decided to keep it online because he considered it an “awareness” and “warning” video.

He also raised questions about the challenges of testing an internet-dependent driverless vehicle in Pakistan. “If the car is not running in Islamabad because of internet disconnection, then where in Pakistan can it run tomorrow?” he asked.

Aalijah said the incident could have had more serious consequences had the experiment taken place in a busy area with heavier traffic. “Allah saved us. May Allah keep everyone safe,” he said, warning that an experiment involving a driverless vehicle could potentially cause harm to others if adequate precautions were not taken.

Despite the collision, Aalijah said, “There is no shortage of talent in Pakistani youth,” recalling other examples of young Pakistanis developing innovative projects. “Attempts will be made, innovation will happen, mistakes will happen, improvements will be made, and then we will come back,” Aalijah said.