Key Points:
- An under-age boy died after his motorcycle collided with a speeding chingchi at Gali No. 21, Raza Abad.
- The rickshaw driver fled the scene and no arrest has been made; the only lead is engine number U-84936.
- FIR 1285/26 was registered under section 322 PPC only; whether section 320 should also apply remains unanswered.
- Under section 99-B, under-age driving now carries a fine of up to Rs10,000 and impounding of the vehicle; there is no jail term.
- A juvenile driving permit is open only from age 16; a child under 16 has no legal route to a motorcycle.
FAISALABAD: There is no weight heavier than a child’s coffin; only the one who carried it knows.
His under-age son was riding a motorcycle from home towards Gulzari Park when a chingchi came from the other side at speed near Main Line, Gali No. 21. The two collided.
The boy was thrown to the ground and badly hurt. According to the FIR, the news reached the family and his father was taking him to Allied Hospital, but he died of his injuries on the way.
The rickshaw driver left his vehicle at the spot and fled. All the police have to trace him is the rickshaw’s engine number: U-84936.
He was still under age. By law, he should not have been riding at all.
But our tragedy is that for many people under-age driving is no big deal. In their view, if a boy rides a motorcycle or a daughter drives a car to run the household, it should not be taken seriously, because nobody has an alternative.
But the law does not see it that way.
In the past year, Punjab’s law on the subject has swung hard in both directions.
The old traffic schedule charged a boy on a motorcycle just Rs300 for riding under age. But in 2025 the demand for change grew stronger.
In May 2025, a Punjab traffic police spokesman told Daily Pakistan that in that one month alone, more than 50,000 under-age drivers had been acted against across the province and more than 2,900 vehicles impounded.
In November 2025, the government took a tough decision, so that innocent lives could be saved and parents could be told about the dangers of under-age driving and the punishment it carries.
A new ordinance made under-age driving punishable on prosecution with up to six months in jail and a fine of up to Rs50,000.
Police began registering FIRs against children themselves.
But the arrest of children was stopped.
In December 2025, the Lahore High Court restrained the police chief from arresting under-age drivers. First-time child offenders were to be warned instead.
Dismissing a challenge to the tougher penalties that same month, Chief Justice Aalia Neelum cited police data showing that 5,000 children were injured or killed in accidents caused by wrong-way violations alone (Dawn, 5 December 2025).
Then, in May 2026, the provincial assembly settled the law. The Provincial Motor Vehicles (Second Amendment) Act 2026 — Act XXVI of 2026, assented to by the Governor on 7 May — repealed the ordinance and rewrote the penalties.
Under-age driving is now a specific offence under a new section 99-B. The penalty is a fine of up to Rs10,000, with no jail term.
The vehicle stays impounded until it is handed over to the owner or to a person the owner authorises who holds a valid driving licence.
Under the same law, a traffic warden hands out an on-the-spot ticket of Rs2,000 for riding under age on a motorcycle. It carries four demerit points.
Under the points system the same Act created, a driver who piles up more than 20 points in a year has his licence suspended for six months.
Driving without a licence at all carries a fine of up to Rs5,000 under section 97(2).
The owner who hands over the keys is not outside the law either. Section 5 of the Motor Vehicles Ordinance 1965 forbids an owner to cause or permit an under-age or unlicensed person to drive.
The general penalty under section 112 is a fine of Rs1,000 to Rs5,000.
The government also accepted a practical reality. Many families depend on the motorcycle.
So Punjab has opened a narrow legal door at 16: a juvenile driving permit for riders aged 16 to 18. The Punjab government’s scheme began on 16 June 2026.
A published report on the scheme says that in Faisalabad the permit is issued at 25 driving licence centres of the City Traffic Police. Boys and girls aged 16 to 18 are both eligible.
City Traffic Police Faisalabad spokesman Muhammad Naveed told Grand Lines that 9,870 permits have been issued in Faisalabad so far.
But the door stops at 16. A child under 16 has no legal route to a motorcycle — none.
| Who | What the law allows |
|---|---|
| 🚫Under 16 | No riding or driving at all |
| 🏍16 to 18 | Motorcycle only, with a juvenile driving permit |
| 🮲18 and above | Regular driving licence |
| 🔑Owners and parents who hand over the keys | An offence under section 5; a fine of Rs1,000 to Rs5,000 under section 112 — and the vehicle stays impounded until a licensed driver collects it |
Ahsan Ali, a social worker in Faisalabad, puts the responsibility for such deaths wider than the family of the child who dies.
We do not know if the boy left home with his family’s blessing. He may have taken the motorcycle without telling anyone.
Either way, someone should have stopped him.
Parents first. But not only parents.
Neighbours saw him. Shopkeepers saw him.
Elders in the street saw him. Did anyone say a word?
It is not that simple any more, people say. Ahsan says he hears the reasoning every week in his work: stop another family’s child today and the family will ask by what right you interfered.
A child, in that thinking, is his family’s private matter and no one else’s. He argues that this attitude is now common and that it comes at a cost: behind closed doors, it lets many small wrongs grow into big ones.
A single sentence could have changed this story. Beta, you are too young to drive. Go with an elder. You could get hurt.
No one said it. Now a family carries a wound that will never close.
“There is no weight heavier than a child’s coffin.”
This boy was not alone. Look around any Faisalabad street.
Young boys weave through crowded bazaars on motorcycles. Mothers ride behind them with small children on their laps.
Some teenagers do the daily school run, dropping and picking up younger siblings.
Families call it convenience. Nobody calls it danger.
Ahsan Ali said a child at the handlebars has no real sense of the road and has had no proper training. He does not know the rules.
He asked: when a chingchi suddenly turns or a car brakes, how will that teenage driver keep control?
In such circumstances the danger is not limited to him. Every pedestrian, every motorcyclist and every other driver on that road is in the same circle of danger.
The City Traffic Police say 17,992 juvenile drivers have been challaned in Faisalabad since 1 January this year.
A juvenile caught riding without a permit has his vehicle bound on the spot. It stays bound until his guardian submits an affidavit.
But despite the action, teenage boys are still on the roads.
The crash happened at Gali No. 21, near Main Line in Raza Abad, within the limits of Raza Abad police station. Heavy traffic rarely passes there.
On such a road, speed is the likely cause. The FIR records that the chingchi came at speed from the opposite side.
The boy was a child, on a machine he had no training to control.
The rickshaw driver fled the scene at once, leaving the rickshaw behind him.
Raza Abad police have registered FIR 1285/26 against the unknown driver, under section 322 of the Penal Code.
That section covers a death caused by an unlawful act. It carries compensation, diyat, but no prison term.
It is being said that in this case section 320 should have been applied.
That section covers death by rash or negligent driving. It carries up to 10 years in prison besides diyat.
But no proof has yet been found of what the real cause of the accident was. Was the rickshaw driver speeding, or was the boy driving out of control?
The only lead to the driver so far is the engine number of the rickshaw left at the spot.
The City Traffic Police say 2,850 juvenile rickshaw drivers have been fined in Faisalabad.
How many chingchi and loader rickshaw drivers have had their licences checked this year in all? How many of them were under 18 or had no licence at all?
The City Traffic Police spokesman said no separate data exists on this.
Muhammad Naveed was also asked whether any traffic warden was on duty on the road where the boy died on 9 November.
Who decides which of this city’s roads gets a warden and which does not? No reply was given by Muhammad Naveed on this either.
An arrest, if it comes, will close one file. It will not answer the larger question.
The government has raised fines, threatened FIRs and opened a legal path for 16-year-olds. The law itself has changed twice in a year.
Still, an under-age child found a motorcycle and an open road.
So where does the failure lie?
Do children no longer listen to their parents? Or are parents handing them the keys long before time, handing over their responsibilities too?
The answer matters. Because the next coffin could be in any of our homes.
Author Profile
- Award-winning investigative journalist with 20+ years of experience across Pakistan's leading news organisations, including 15+ years as Senior Staff Correspondent at Dawn. Driven by a lifelong passion for investigative journalism and human rights, with a proven record of hard-hitting stories that forced official action — from hospital negligence and illegal land grabs to harassment probes and social injustice. He is the recipient of the K.C. Kulish International Award for Excellence in Print Journalism.
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