Cops crack down on bike racers, 222 FIRs filed in two days

According to Raj Tilak Roushan, Deputy Commissioner of Police (traffic), a special drive was carried between 11 pm and 2 am across the city

Mumbai: Taking cognisance of mischievous bike racers after a series of complaints from residents, the traffic police has started a crackdown. Police filed FIRs against 222 bikers on Thursday and Friday nights. Mumbai Traffic police officers said that they received many complaints about racing gangs operating across the city.

The riders were booked for rash driving and their two-wheelers have been confiscated by the police officials. (Satyabrata Tripathy/HT Photo)

“The racing activity has started again in many parts of the city as pointed out by Commissioner of Mumbai police Sanjay Pandey during a Facebook live session,” said a traffic police official. Pandey had earlier said that citizens from BKC and JJ flyover had complained about bike racing during the night. “Bikers are still racing. Wait...we will ensure these bikes are taken out if on Mumbai roads,” Pandey had posted on his official Twitter handle.

According to Raj Tilak Roushan, Deputy Commissioner of Police (traffic), a special drive was carried between 11 pm and 2 am across the city, especially on the stretches of roads where racing was going on. Roushan said that out of the 222 motorcyclists booked for racing, the maximum racers were caught by the Dahisar division (19 cases), followed by the Nagpada division (17 cases), DN Nagar (15 cases) and Kandivali (12 cases). Personnel from all 50 traffic chowkies were out on the streets.

The riders were booked for rash driving and their two-wheelers have been confiscated by the police officials. “Racers at Kalbadevi and DB Marg and BKC were also booked,” said Roushan.

Officials said that the bikers are mostly organising races on weekends at places that do not have 24-hour police surveillance. Officers said that the bikers send WhatsApp messages placing bets ranging from ₹5,000 to ₹1 lakh.

“Many of the times, the bikes used for racing are stolen or modified. We had been tracking the activity of racers and had kept a watch on the popular spots for racing,” said Roushan.

Roushan further said that the drive would continue till the police are able to curb racing completely and stop drivers from driving on the wrong side putting the lives of others and themselves in danger.

Violators failing to pay e-challan fine to face legal proceedings

As a last resort to recover unpaid challans, the Mumbai Traffic police have sent pre-litigation notices to 14,82,328 vehicle owners to pay their pending challans or be present before the court. The traffic police officers said that the deadline for paying the unpaid challans is March 12 after which the violators would have to be present before one of the 15 courts chosen by them to face consequences.

Raj Tilak Roushan, Deputy Commissioner of Police (Traffic HQ) said that if the violators do not present themselves before the court, a chargesheet would be filed against them and legal proceedings will be initiated against them.

The traffic police officers said that there was a backlog of 29 lakh unpaid fines of e-challans for various traffic violations amounting to ₹315 crore.

According to the traffic police officials, the violators who have challans pending of more than ₹15,000 have been sent the pre-litigation notices. “We have sent the notices through mobile text messages and given a deadline till March 12 to pay the pending dues. We have also sent notices to the respective chowkies across the city to be hand-delivered to violators at their registered addresses,” said Roushan.

Since September 12, the Maharashtra traffic police had begun sending pre-litigation notices to owners of vehicles who owed them more than ₹4,17,41,68,415 crore in fines for committing traffic violations across the state. More than 10 lakh vehicle owners were served the notices.

Despite partial lockdown in 2021 prompted by surging Covid-19 cases, traffic violations did not decrease. The traffic police had in 2021 filed 63,81,548 cases.

The data stated that 95,160 people were caught for driving without a seatbelt, 8,06,472 riders were caught without helmets, 66,3285 cases were made for people driving in the “no entry” zone and 3,42,329 people were caught for signal jumping.

Officers said that the ways they had implemented to recover the pending challans were not working so they had to approach the court. Since June 14, 2021, teams of constables had been asked to visit the addresses of violators who had not paid e-challans of more than ₹5,000 targeting the top 25,000 people who collectively owe ₹120 crore to the traffic department.