Mumbai: The continuous awareness campaigns of the Mumbai police to curb drunk-driving in the city seemed to have fallen on deaf ears, as 2019 saw as many as 948 cases of drunken driving in Mumbai during Holi celebration.
The figures of drunken driving went up by 153 per cent from last year’s 375 cases to 948 this time around. Meanwhile, Thane traffic police have booked 922 cases of drunken driving till Thursday evening. In a co-ordinated crackdown by Mumbai Police and Mumbai Traffic Police (MTP) on violators who incessantly broke rules on Holi festival.
These numbers were, however, overshadowed by the 10,898 cases recorded on Thursday, which includes speeding, riding without helmet, riding triple seat, rash driving, parking in no parking zones, among others. Manjunath Singe, deputy commissioner of police (Operations) and Mumbai Police spokesperson, said, “We had deployed proper security to curb any nuisance from happening during the festive season.
The maximum numbers of motorists were booked for riding without helmet and drunk driving.” Police booked over 4738 bikers for riding without a helmet, while 789 motorists were booked for riding triple seat. As many as 166 motorists were booked for rash driving and 345 people for speeding.
Other traffic violations like parking in no parking zones, driving/riding without documents led to 3,827 police actions. For the festival of colours this year, Mumbai police had deployed 6,500 policemen in addition to the 2,500 traffic cops to ensure no untoward incidents took place in the city.
Precautionary measures like the formation of anti-eve teasing squads, night patrolling, city-wide nakabandi and deployment of women constables were taken to maintain the law and order. In 2018, Mumbai police had booked 317 people for drunken driving, while 2,403 cases of speeding were registered across the city. In all, last year, Mumbai police and Mumbai Traffic Police had registered around 11,000 cases for traffic violations.
