Height of desperation: Rickshaw drivers climb electricity pylon to protest fines
Rising expenses drove a motorcycle-rickshaw driver up the pole in the Sherakot area as he climbed an electricity pylon to protest against his third consecutive challan by the police. He was later joined by dozens more people, who climbed the tower.
Electricity was turned off in the afternoon.
The driver had first arrived in the area and informed people that he had been fined three times in the last three days, adding that he could no longer afford to pay the fines. Today the police had impounded his motorcycle-rickshaw.
In protest, the driver climbed to the top of the tower with copies of the challan in his hand.
A local man later climbed the pylon to negotiate with the driver and was promised that he would come down. Instead of the first driver coming down, eight more climbed the tower to join the protest.
The crowd later swelled and police resorted to baton charging to disperse them. Once the crowd started to retaliate, the police then started aerial firing and also fired straight at some of the protestors, injuring some of them in the process.
Armed men, who were believed to be plainclothes policemen, were also seen firing at the gathered crowd from a house.
Mazhar, the first climber
The first driver to climb the tower identified himself as Mazhar. Reporters and cameramen had climbed the tower and spoken to him about the situation.
He said that the policemen would stop him every day and waste his time.
Mazhar claimed that the policemen had stopped him again today and joked with him saying that he had told them he would jump under a car yesterday, and then gave him the challan.
The driver claimed that there was no violation and the policemen just joked with him.
COMMENTS (18)
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I have a simple suggestion for Express Tribune.Hire a rickshaw for a week. Get one driver with a license and another without one. Tell the one without a license to go out the first day and do his duty like any other rickshaw driver. Then get the driver with the license to drive the same rickshaw the second day.Alternate, and after one week, come back with a complete story. I think it will open the eyes of everyone commenting on this story. If you want to fix the problem, first be a part of it then make your final deductions.
This idiot has only two options. One is to pay the fine and second is to fight the challan. If anyone wants to support him, he should contribute some money for him to get legal help. All his stunts are against the law and he must be prosecuted seperately. Lahore Rickshaw drivers are worst in the world. Even Martial Law authorites could not force them to obey traffic rules and charge according to meter. Absolutely no sypathy for these jerks.
Before blaming that poor soul can some one please shed some light on our so called traffic laws if we have any? How about police first stop taking bribe to issue licenses .. How about our so called IGs of Traffic police throughout the country sit together and decide to make it compulsory to take test from not only learner drivers but for the next two years or so, whoever does a traffic violation, must pay some amount to get driving training and pass the test. And how about GoP bring some discipline to the roads .. we hardly have any road markings and traffic signs.
The sentence "...were also scene firing at the gathered crowd from a house." has a typo.
the posts above very much sound like " A TALE OF TWO CITIES " by Charles Dickens. Yes it is the best of times for some, but for others it is the worst of times.....
@abdul basit: According to the statistics, its the rich the who are more likely to break laws world wide, but only in Pakistan they could get away with it!! Unfortuantely our police doesn't hesitate to penalize the poor for even the tiniest of violations, while on the other hand a rich person could hit someone and fatally injure them, the only thing they have to do is give a refrence of some high profile politician or a top cop or just pay a few bucks and they get away with it! But forget it, you would never understand! And yes, if that rickshaw driver did something wrong, he should be penalized, but the tragedy is that our cops usually keep penalizing the poor for nothing!
He can easily pay the fine, if thousands of Rickshaw drivers in Lahore contribute one Rupee each, but they won't adopt civilized way.
Another Advantage of Load shedding !! You can get prominent Place to protest !! This is Epic !!
I find this attitude deploring. His license should be confiscated for repeatedly violating traffic laws and regulations. Instead he thinks he is the 'mazloom qaum' who should get away with whatever he wants because poverty has driven him to the brink.
ET reporter please also mention why he was challaned three time in three days.. what violations he did???
poors cannot afford top pay fines,
traffic police never charge luxary cars
Rickshaw drivers not earned enough
Can you please mention the whole story that what challan was about...bcoz it made the police willan however if they are right then they should pay the challan...Msida should be responsible media
This is not laughable at all, it made me almost cry, this is not the fault of traffic police, this is the misery of people, poor are becoming more poor, this man is unable to pay just a small amount of money, Shame on our so called patriotic politicians, see whats happening with the people, stop looting the public money, for God sake this is ur country , ur own children have to live here, u will be held responsible and questioned at the day of judgment, dont spoil it please
So is the traffic police elsewhere in Pakistan. When you have started penalizing citizen's violations (of course through so called parliament) but citizens cannot penalize you for not performing due services the traffic police is supposed to perform, then it is injustice requires a long due suemoto.
It's good that the police is cracking down on those violating traffic laws.This guy is just using the media hype to blackmail the authorities to not penalise him for his breaking of the traffic laws. Our society first scream that the authorities don't do anything against criminals and when they do take action,the police are attacked for penalising the offenders.Doing such stunts to avoid paying for your crimes is an old trick.The police should arrest him now for creating a law and order situation and putting govt. infrastructure at risk.