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Motorway Police, Excise Dept at loggerheads over vehicles’ inspection

Monday, April 12, 2010
By Imtiaz Ali

Karachi

The National Highway and Motorway Police (NH&MP) and the Sindh excise and taxation department are at loggerheads over the inspection of vehicles on National Highway, The News has learnt.

The disagreement between the two establishments is one over the modalities of checking, sources said, explaining that while the NH&MP believe that an ‘unauthorised’ permanent check-post in Sakrand (District Benazirabad) was hindering the smooth flow of traffic on the highway, the excise department argue that they are being obstructed by the motorway police from controlling narcotics trade.

NH&MP Superintendent of Police (SP) Muhammad Anwar Bugti, in a letter dated April 5, 2010 to his deputy inspector general (DIG), stated that officials of the excise and taxation department have set up an ‘illegal check-post’ at SB-244 in Beat-31, Sakrand, District Benazirabad (formerly Nawabshah).

The motorway police had informed the excise police on a number of occasions that they were not supposed to stop vehicles at that junction without appropriate measures, the SP wrote, given that the injunctions of the National Highway Safety Ordinance (NHSO) declare the entire length of the highway as a no-parking zone. All such pleas fell on deaf ears, he SP said.

Bugti claimed that the excise staff did not adopt appropriate safety measures, including wearing reflecting jackets and erecting a police stop sign board, among other motorway infringements. As a result, the operations of the excise department were adversely affecting the smooth flow of traffic, he wrote, which in turn is not only immensely inconveniencing commuters but had also causing fatal and non-fatal accidents.

In response to the motorway police’s complaints, the excise and taxation officer of Benazirabad, in his letter dated April 5 to the departmental secretary, maintained that the NH&MP were creating a hindrance in dispensation of “lawful duty.”

The letter claimed that “remarkable cases” of narcotics have been detected in the said jurisdiction, but recent hindrances created by the NH&MP in searching suspected vehicles would “facilitate smugglers of narcotics.”

The excise police said that they were empowered to exercise the functions of seizure and investigation of narcotic cases under the Control of Narcotic Substance Act (CNSA)-1997, and for this purpose, Sakrand was notified as a check-post through a departmental notification issued on October 14, 2005.

Sources told The News that an interesting situation developed on April 5, when the Motorway DIG visited the check-post, and asked excise officials to discontinue the vehicle inspection, or else face the music.

Excise officials posted on site informed the DIG, however, that the check-post was “duly sanctioned” and checking of vehicles by them was within the provisions of sections 21, 22, 23, 39 (2) and 38 of the CNSA-1997. The DIG did not agree with them, and deputed two officers of the motorway police to prevent the excise police from checking vehicles.

The Benazirabad excise and taxation officer, in his letter, urged the higher authorities to stop the motorway police from such “illegal exercise,” and if necessary, file a constitutional petition before the Sindh High Court against the motorway police. Sources further added that the excise department claimed that their performance in seizing a “record number of narcotics” was an “eye-sore” for the motorway police.