Computerised database: Police return 96 recovered vehicles to owners

The cars are from the lot impounded since 2008.

ISLAMABAD:

For four long months, Shahid Mehmood did not leave a single stone unturned while searching for his car, a Suzuki Mehran that was stolen from outside Nawaz Sharif Park in Rawalpindi in September 2012.

The lack of cooperation from the New Town Police Station, where he had filed a complaint for the car theft, had not helped him much. “The officials told me to keep looking around the park and visit different police stations to check if the vehicle had turned up somewhere,” he told The Express Tribune, adding, they were of the opinion that thieves usually abandon chassis after ridding them of CNG kits.”

Drained mentally and physically, the resident of Satellite Town who runs a shop in the Commercial Market gave up hope of ever recovering the car back without ever considering the fact that thousands commute between the ‘twin cities’, Islamabad and Rawalpindi, every day.



Little did he know that his car had been recovered by the Sabzi Mandi Police Station in Islamabad, some five kilometres from the where the incident had taken place. On Saturday, 13 months after he had registered an FIR, Mehmood got reunited with his now battered and rusty car.

It was all because of Islamabad Police’s new mobile verification system - a computerised database with records of car registration that police officers can access on their cell phones.

A total of 96 stolen vehicles were returned to their rightful owners at a ceremony held at the Islamabad Traffic Police Headquarters on Saturday.

These cars, albeit, were not from the lot seized by police at check posts using the new technology since the verification system went online two months ago according to the Inspector General (IG) of Police Sikandar Hayat.

“These cars are from the 583 cars that were recovered by various police stations and were in their custody since around 2008. We ran their information through the new system and found 96 of the cars were stolen,” he added.

Some of the cars could not be returned to the owners because they could not be located or because some corrupt police officers kept the cars for their own use said the police chief who also promised to reprimand officers guilty of the act.

According to the police, 22 of the 96 vehicles were stolen from Rawalpindi, 20 from Islamabad, 18 from Lahore, nine from Karachi, six from Faisalabad, five from Multan, two from Bahawalpur and Bahawalnagar, two from Gujrat, two from Kasur, two from Khanewal, two from Sheikhupura, two from Sialkot, two from Sahiwal, one from Abbottabad and one from Azad Jammu and Kashmir.

“I would probably have to spend Rs100,000 on repairs so the car gets back into a working condition,” Mehmood said.

Moreover, the cars were parked in a tight lane inside the ITP headquarters with no room for a car in the middle to leave without first removing the cars around it.

“Without facilitating us, the officials told us to take the cars home from there. They did not even back the other vehicles out of the compound first,” said an owner requesting anonymity. “The officers have had their photo-op and now they are least bothered about what happens to us.”

Holding on to the comfort that the returned vehicle had brought them, Mehmood and his sons had to leave without their mechanically-unfit car.

Published in The Express Tribune, October 27^th, 2013.