LAHORE: A crackdown against motorists tampering with number plates to evade the e-challan system is continuing in Lahore, with traffic police registering criminal cases against the owners of 113 motorcycles and luxury vehicles found using bogus plates over the past three months.
During the enforcement campaign, challan tickets were issued to 17,749 vehicles running without number plates or displaying “Applied For” plates.
Action was taken against a further 12,996 vehicles for failing to display number plates conforming to the standard pattern prescribed by the Excise Department, including fancy plates.
Traffic police said challan tickets were also issued to 11,552 vehicles for broken number plates or for concealing the vehicle’s model. In addition, more than 84,000 motorcycle and car owners were given awareness briefings on traffic laws for minor violations.
The Chief Traffic Officer Lahore said cases were being registered against those fitting bogus number plates under provisions relating to fraud.
That distinction matters. A defective or missing plate is ordinarily a ticketable traffic violation attracting a modest fine. A deliberately falsified plate — one carrying a registration number belonging to another vehicle, or a fabricated number — is treated as an act of cheating and forgery, exposing the holder to criminal prosecution rather than a fine.
The CTO advised citizens that when transferring a vehicle, they should use the new universal number rather than retaining the old registration number.
He said criminal elements used fake number plates to conceal their identity, and that strict action against such elements would continue.
The security rationale is the driver of the campaign. Vehicles bearing false or absent plates are a recurring feature in street-crime investigations, snatchings and getaway movements, because they defeat the single most useful investigative tool available to police in an urban environment: camera identification.
Lahore’s Safe City network and the province’s expanding e-challan system both rest on automatic number plate recognition. The system reads a plate, matches it against the Excise and Taxation Department’s registration database, and issues a challan to the registered owner’s address. Every element of that chain fails if the plate is fabricated, obscured, or belongs to a different vehicle.
The e-challan regime has significantly increased the cost of routine violations by removing the discretion — and the negotiation — that accompanied roadside enforcement. The predictable response from a segment of motorists has been to attack the point of identification rather than the behaviour.
Vehicle owners are advised that computerised number plates are issued only by the Excise, Taxation and Narcotics Control Department; plates fabricated privately, however closely they resemble the official design, are not valid. Following the transfer of ownership, the transferee is required to obtain the plate corresponding to the current registration record.
Motorcyclists — who account for the overwhelming majority of registered vehicles in Lahore and the largest share of the challans in this enforcement drive — are among the most affected, since the practice of riding on unregistered or delivery-pending plates is widespread.
Motorists have broadly accepted the road-safety argument but have raised procedural complaints, principally about delays in the delivery of computerised plates after registration, which leave owners legitimately displaying “Applied For” markings for extended periods. Traffic authorities have been urged to distinguish clearly between those awaiting delivery and those evading identification.
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