The War on Plates

The next time you hear of some unwitting motorist receiving a slap on the wrist for displaying a number plate in a way deemed to be 'incorrect' by the authorities - please spare a thought for their counterparts in the metropolis of Islamabad

Drivers in the Pakistan capital city are now subject to the ultimate in draconian law-enforcement measures.

The police there, under the auspices of Inspector General, Qalbe Abbas, have ordered a crackdown on those displaying what he quaintly terms 'fancy' number plates - presumably those daring to employing alternatives to the prescribed character font. It is not clear exactly what retribution the inspector has in store for the perpetrators of such dastardly crimes.

Most worrying though, for the Islamabad motorist, are the consequences of failing to display a number plate at all. Such transgressions, together with (perhaps, more reasonably) those of falsifying registrations, will be treated as no less than acts of terrorism - the contemporary byword, the more cynical might suggest, for the justification of excessive civil controls.

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