Daily Times

Sir: The Sindh government’s latest effort to ostensibly curb rising street crime and killings in Karachi comes in the form of a ban on pillion riding. This ban has been imposed time and again in order to improve the law and order situation but the state of affairs in Karachi has gone from bad to worse. People are still being mugged and killed despite the ban, hence indicating that the ban on pillion riding does not serve as a solution to the extremely grave law and order situation of the city. It is true that the majority of street crimes and target killings are perpetrated by men riding motorcycles but the ban is not the right solution to this problem.

A large number of Karachites use motorcycles to go to work and to visit friends and relatives. There are over 1.2 million registered motorcycles, which carry over two million commuters daily. This ban overlooks the major inconvenience caused to a sizeable chunk of Karachi’s commuting and working population who use motorcycles. I would like to ask the authorities why ordinary people are being punished for a problem that should be resolved by better policing and law enforcement. In short, let us just punish those tens of thousands of ordinary citizens who share rides out of necessity because the government is unable to nab the real culprits through proper law enforcement.

MUHAMMED ZAFIR ZIA

Karachi