Justice denied: Case of the missing motorcycle

‘For them it was just another motorbike, for me it meant much more’.

ISLAMABAD: The city police have been accused of refusing to register a case of a stolen motorbike. The delay was being caused on one pretext or the other, with the complainant and his father failing to get their voice heard even after visiting the police station every day.

Javed Iqbal Qureshi, a resident of sector G-8/4, lost his brand new Honda CD-125 to a theft outside his residence in the early hours of December 6. When he went to Margalla Police Station for registration of an FIR, he was left in surprise. The police plainly refused to register a case, Qureshi said.

“Do you think we will register four FIRs a day for motorbike theft? If four motorbikes go missing in a day, we do not register FIRs for all of them on the same day,” the Moharar of the Margalla Police Station allegedly told Qureshi.

Qureshi said that two other motorbikes were also stolen from the same place at the same time. Those two motorbikes were later recovered by the police after they were impounded from different checkpoints in the city.

But the police had a “ready-made yet a queer reply” for Qureshi, when he asked for his motorbike to be retrieved. “Your motorbike was new and it was a Honda 125 which runs really fast. It cannot be chased,” a police official had told Qureshi.

The Rs90,000 motorbike had been purchased after months of saving money. For police, it was just another motorbike. But for Qureshi it meant much more. “After deducting money from my meager salary for months, I was able to buy this gift for my father,” he said.

He said his father had also paid several visits to the Margalla Police Station but only to get further disappointment. Qureshi also filed a complaint with the Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), again to no avail. Last Friday was no different, the police refused to register FIR without giving any reason. Qureshi was wondering as to why the police were hesitant in registering the FIR of a stolen motorbike.

Published in The Express Tribune, December 11^th, 2010.