66 % Of Vehicle Thieves Get Acquitted Due To Less Stringent Laws

KARACHI, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 26th Feb, 2021 ) :Senior Superintendent of Police of Anti-Vehicle Lifting Cell, Rao Muhammad Arif Aslam has underlined the need for revising and making stringent the laws dealing with the vehicle thieves/snatchers as at present 60 percent of them are acquitted and resume the crime again.

" The relevant laws, punishments and fines for vehicles' theft or snatching need to be made more stringent as statistics indicate that 66 percent of the culprits have been acquitted while the remaining 34 percent convicted but the majority of them get minor punishment," he said.

He was speaking at a meeting with the business community at Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry, says KCCI release on Friday.

He said that almost all the acquitted get back on the streets of Karachi to resume their criminal activities while the convicted ones also do the same after completing a very minor sentence or paying petty fines hence.

He also gave a presentation on how to reduce the chances of theft, who to be approached and also spoke on the relevant laws.

It was a matter of grave concern that the culprits, who deprive the public of their vehicles, particularly motorbikes being used mostly for earning bread and butter, are fined with a mere amount of Rs 500 to Rs 5,000 which was too low and needs to raised.

General Secretary of Businessmen Group, A.Q.Khalil, Senior Vice President KCCI Saqib Goodluck, Vice President Shamsul islam Khan, Chairman KCCI's Law and Order Subcommittee Junaid-ur-Rehman, KCCI Managing Committee Members besides other members of the chamber were present.

SSP-AVLC said it was a challenging task to curtail vehicle theft in a city like Karachi but AVLC was trying its best to improve the situation and was strictly dealing with culprits by initiating crackdowns from time to time in numerous areas to destroy their networks.

"By the end of 2020, around 2.1 million cars while more than 3.5 million motorbikes have also been registered in Karachi but this number would be much higher when bikes registered in other cities also come on Karachi's roads and streets.

Around 228 cars and 849 motorbikes are being added to city's traffic on daily basis", he added.

He further informed that AVLC was also in the process of creating database carrying complete details of registered vehicles and their status for a smartphone app which would be made available to police officials so that they could efficiently and promptly deal with vehicle theft issue.

" We will soon be launching this app and also look into the possibility of giving its access to KCCI's representative as Karachi Chamber has been frequently receiving vehicle-theft complaints from its members", he added.

To a question, he said that it was mandatory for the owners of vehicles to seek No Objection Certificate (NOC) from AVLC in case the vehicle was being transported outside the province.

In this regard, a very good and foolproof system has been successfully implemented at AVLC facility at Sharifabad where the owners of vehicles could get the NOC free of cost.

"Earlier, this NOC was being provided to applicants at nominal charges of Rs500 but now it is free for all", he added.

Rao Muhammad Arif also agreed to create a strong liaison between AVLC and KCCI so that the business community's vehicle-theft problems could be instantly responded. In this regard, he provided a focal person along with his contact details to KCCI and also sought a nomination of KCCI's representative so that AVLC-KCCI liaison could be further strengthened.