Actor Kunal Khemu fined for riding bike without helmet, after Mumbaiite tweets photo

The Mumbai traffic police served the Bollywood actor an e-challan for ₹500 on Wednesday

Bollywood actor Kunal Khemu was fined by the traffic police on Wednesday, after a Mumbai resident tweeted a photo of the actor on his bike without a helmet. He is the second actor in the city to have been served an e-challan based on a tweet recently.

Actor Kunal Khemu. (HT File Photo)

In November 2017, actor Varun Dhawan was fined after a photo of his breaking a traffic rule — he leaned halfway out of his car’s window at a traffic signal to oblige a fan with a selfie — was tweeted.

On Wednesday, a Mumbaiite posted a photo of the actor riding his motorcycle without a helmet, which went viral on Twitter, and tagged the Mumbai traffic police asking them to take action.

Like Dhawan, an embarrassed Khemu apologised on Twitter for breaking traffic rules, but he will still have to pay the fine of Rs500. “The offence was brought to our notice and we have taken action. The actor was sent an e-challan of Rs500,” said a traffic police official, who did not wish to be named.

In 2017, the city traffic police installed around 6,200 CCTV cameras and dispatched 19,52,296 e-challans, though many of the offenders are yet to pay their fines.

To collect the e-challan amount, the police send letters to offenders and share their vehicle numbers with the RTO. If they are caught during nakabandis or for other offences, they are made to pay the pending fines, but if not caught, there’s no mechanism in place to collect the penalty.