Tampering of number plate rampant in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: In a bid to evade traffic-violation challans from thetraffic cops,motorists in the city, with a belief in 'no number plate, no challan' ideology, are riding vehicles without registration number plates. Following a fury of hefty challans against traffic violators, under 'Traffic Action Plan', a special drive by the City traffic police, people, especially youngsters, are either camouflaging or removing the registration plates altogether to avoid challans.

This year, traffic police had issued over 1.3 lakh challans and most importantly, more than 500 cases were booked against those tampering and camouflaging number plates. Motorists are seen taking extreme measures to avoid challans, which includes folding, plastering and disfiguring number plates, painting a wrong digit or fixating reflective stickers and even covering the plate with a facial mask, with a goal to make the traffic cops not read the plate number and miss the challan. Such measures of evasion have reached a whole new level in the City, previously unheard of.

According to violators, police are continually issuing hefty challans on one or the other violation with fines ranging from Rs 100 to Rs 1000. They say that a challan of Rs 200 is being imposed for stop-line violation, despite most roads lacking stop-line markings.

Curiously, a challan of 'disobedience of orders' of Rs 500 is also being added to violations such as not wearing helmets. Following traffic rules is beneficial as it improves the traffic flow, but going against the norm and issuing hefty challans for violations under the pretext of 'disobedience of orders' are essentially increasing the challan rates and burning a hole in the common man's pocket.

Observers say that to avoid such challans, people are riding vehicles with tampered or without number plates, which is a criminal offense. "When police initiates special checks on roads, they avoid such routes or make U-turns from the spots. They sternly believe in 'no number plate - no challan' ideology and accordingly are riding vehicles without number plates," said Asif Hussain, one of the observers. He adds, "Such violators are mostly youngsters, the police must not only impose challans on such a criminal offence but also spread awareness along with their parents".

Recently, Hyderabad traffic police launched a special drive against tampering, fixing, irregular and absence of vehicle registration plates. Hyderabad Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic) A V Ranganath had also issued a warning that vehicles without license plates and those with numbers or letters obliterated will be detained. He said that people tamper with the registration number plates to escape traffic challans. "Criminal cases will be booked against those plying on City roads with tampered vehicle registration numbers," he added.

"During the special drive, we are seizing such vehicles for violation of the prescribed number plate display rule and are also lodging a complaint at the nearest local law and order police station. A criminal case is booked and the vehicle owner is arrested," informed Ranganath.

Of the 1,32,392 e-challans issued over for number plate rule violation this year, the police has booked 525 criminal cases against such violators.