ISLAMABAD         -            The Islamabad Traffic Police (ITP) has issued over 7,000 tickets to the drivers using fancy number plates during the outgoing year.

A number of unregistered and fancy plates from cars and motorcycles were also removed during the same period, besides impounding vehicles, an ITP official told APP.

The ITP education wing was organizing awareness campaigns to sensitize the vehicle owners having unauthorized number plates as it was a security risk, he added.

Special points have been established at major arteries of the city to discourage the practice and removal of such plates, he said.

“The crackdown will continue until all drivers start using authorized number plates,” the official remarked.

Meanwhile, motorists had blamed the Excise and Taxation office for issuing sub-standard and ugly number plates that forces the people to use the plate of their own choice.

“What is wrong with a fancy number plate,” said Arsalan, a motorist who was driving a car with a personalized plate and had stopped at a traffic signal.

“The number is original with a look far better than the design approved by the authorities,” he argued.

Adeel, another driver, admitted that people should respect the law but added the authorities should also come up with some elegant licence plates as the current one was nothing but a whiteboard.

“Why should I hang a whiteboard on my car, when I have something better to go with it,” he said.