The Lahore High Court on Tuesday barred police from registering the names of arrested underage drivers in the criminal record and ordered to release them on bail.

LHC Judge Ali Zia conducted a hearing on a plea moved against keeping underage drivers in police lockups. The plea stated that police were keeping teens in lockups over driving licence violations.

The court ordered the DIA of IT department police to submit a report on criminal record on December 18.

The Lahore Traffic Police initiated an action against teen drivers and decided to file the first information report against them from getting admission to educational institutions.

“We would take a lenient way of just giving underage drivers a challan, however, we have decided to file FIR against them to protect people from losses,” Chief Traffic Officer (CTO) Lahore Mustansar Feroze said in a video message.

The move came after an underage driver, who was not qualified to drive, killed six members of a family in a road accident.

On November 11, at least six people, who belonged to the same family, were killed in a road accident in Defence Phase 7 of Lahore. The Lahore traffic police said that an underage driver was involved in the accident.

Police on November 17 took into custody the underage driver who was allegedly responsible for the deadly road accident in Lahore.

The FIR of the accident was filed at Defence police station invoking Section 279 (Rash driving or riding on a public way), Section 322 (Punishment for qatl-bis-sabab), and Section 427 (Mischief causing damage to the amount of fifty rupees) of the Pakistan Penal Code.