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Hyderabad drunk doctor arrested in BMW that flips number plates
The doctor, a resident of Gandhi Nagar area, was later let off on a station bail after being served a notice, asking him to appear for questioning on request.
The Jubilee Hills police in Hyderabad on Monday arrested a 40-year-old doctor who was caught for drunk-driving on the intervening night of Saturday and Sunday and was later found to have installed a mechanism in his BMW car to change its number plates by pressing a button, police said on Monday.
Jubilee Hills police inspector U Srinivasulu Reddy told HT that the doctor, identified as Goutham Reddy, a resident of Gandhi Nagar area, was later let off on a station bail after being served a notice, asking him to appear for questioning on request.
“We have booked a case under Section 318 (cheating) and Section 319 (impersonation) of Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), besides under relevant sections of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1988, and also for drunk-driving,” the inspector said.
He said Reddy was caught by the traffic police during a routine drunk-drive check at Chiranjeevi Blood Bank in Jubilee Hills area. “The police intercepted his BMW vehicle and conducted breath-analyser test on him. His blood alcohol content (BAC) was recorded at 137 mg/dl, as against the permissible limit of 30 mg/dl,” he said.
During the checking, the police noticed that the front number plate of the car bore the registration number DL6CM 7097, a Delhi registration number, but the rear number plate displayed TS9FQ 9999, a Telangana registration number.
“The police insisted Reddy to produce the vehicle’s registration documents but he could not provide the same. They conducted a thorough inspection of the vehicle and found that he had installed a mechanism in the car, controlled by a button located next to the steering wheel, that allowed the number plates to switch automatically,” the inspector said.
On questioning, the doctor had claimed that he had got it installed “just for fun” but the police suspected that he was probably using this technology to evade traffic fines.
“We seized the vehicle, registered a case against him and launched an investigation. Investigation revealed that the car is originally registered in Delhi, while the number plate with Telangana registration belonged to another car of his own family,” Srinivasulu Reddy said, adding that no cases or challans were pending against the seized vehicle and further investigation was underway.
