he cops are being too tough. That’s the popular sentiment in the street, as scores of teenagers have been bundled into lockups over the past few days. Their crime: they were caught driving without a licence. Most of them don’t have a licence because they haven’t reached the legal age yet.

The city traffic police are believed to have launched a massive crackdown on underage/ unlicensed drivers following the recent incident in which a teenage driver killed a family of six on a DHA street.

The drive is being widely criticised for its potentially traumatic effect on those arrested. A petition has been filed before Lahore High Court to challenge the Punjab Police’s practice of entering the data of these youth in the Police Criminal Record. It says that the youngsters ought not to be treated like criminals, and that this will only serve to poison their minds against the system and the state.

Many people say that the way the police are dealing with the underage drivers, most of whom are school/ college students, is uncalled-for. They say that instead of apprehending them and lodging FIRs against them, the police could have fined them or impounded their motorbikes/ cars.

There’s a general perception that the crackdown is discriminatory, as the police fear to touch the children belonging to influential families. This perception is strengthened by statistics: of the 5,000-plus youngsters arrested by the police in and around Lahore so far, a majority belongs to downtown and non-elite areas such as Shahdara, Ravi Road, Misri Shah, Circular Road, Mughalpura, Shafiqabad, Yateem Khana and Mozang.

Barrister Aasya Ismail, who has filed the petition in the Lahore High Court against the registration of underage drivers in the CRO of police, tells TNS that the drive violates local as well as international laws meant to protect human rights and children’s rights. “It’s virtually like playing with the future of the young,” she says. “By doing so, the police have put the future of the five thousand teenagers, and more in jeopardy. A few years down the line, will they be able to find a government job? Will they be able to travel abroad freely?”

Barrister Aasya Ismail, who has filed the petition in the Lahore High Court against the registration of underage drivers in the CRO of police, says the drive violates local as well as international laws meant to protect human rights and children’s rights.

According to Ismail, traffic violations are considered “minor” offences across the world. “The police could always impound the vehicles or impose heavy fines on the families of the violators. But they [the police] have no right to treat an underage traffic violator as if they were hardened criminals.”

“It was a nightmare [that] me and my family are still reeling from,” says 17-year-old Moghees (name changed to protect the identity of the youth), a freshman in a local college, who’s just been released after being detained at a local police station for driving without a licence. “I, together with a host of other boys, was stuffed in a lockup as if we were animals. I was there for almost 36 hours. My folks had to pay Rs 20,000 to get me bail. I don’t think I’d be able to get over the experience easily.”

SP Aftab Phularwan, a former head of CRO, says that the criminal record of underage drivers is being prepared by the police in the form of FIRs, fingerprints and pictures.

Barrister Ismail says, “Laws are meant to deter crime. But the way the police are treating our children is deplorable.”

The writer is a print and broadcast journalist