Four e-challans for a two-wheeler he never rode has left a city-based chartered accountant perplexed. Suchit Shah’s tweet on the issue has been reposted by 4,800 tweeples and liked by another 16,000. After a huge response, Mr Shah registered an online complaint on Monday against the unknown two-wheeler owner who he alleged is a habitual offender.
Mr Shah tweeted that his car’s number plate is MH02FJ0759, but in the images attached to the e-challans it seems to be MH02EJ0759. He said he checked the number on the Mumbai Parivahan app and tried several permutations and combinations to find that the details match the Activa in question.
Meanwhile, the police said they have detected that the fraudulent number plate is registered under the name of Nilesh Maler, a resident of Kokan Nagar in Bhandup West. As per the e-challan machine, the vehicle has a pending fine of Rs 3,000 for violations.
Replying to Mr Shah, the Mumbai traffic police tweeted, “We request you to file a grievance on the official website for a swift resolution. To this, Mr Shah said he has “already filed three grievances against three challans, but it seems to be a never-ending process”. He tweeted, “Every month, he violates traffic rules and I keep raising grievances. @MumbaiPolice, please take action against such malpractices.”
Mr Shah said that most tweeples who responded believe that the traffic police are not taking any action against such violators. “It’s time to do something and regain the trust of the public at large,” he said.
This opened the floodgates for other grievances against the Mumbai traffic police department, with @GullaGoji tweeting, “Why does he (Mr Shah) have to file a grievance? If someone does something wrong, the police need to take action. Why should the common man have to suffer? Violators and the police are sleeping peacefully, but the man who did nothing wrong has lost his sleep.”
“Many a time, we pay challan for a violation when our car/bike is parked at home and we are also at home,” tweeted Tilotma Vikram.
Tweeple Dhairya Sawla also supported Mr Shah and posted, “Suchit Bhai, despite raising grievances nothing happens. I have one e-challan against my four-wheeler, and that too because of a random two-wheeler… Despite sending the proof, they don’t erase the challan.”
Another victim, @jaisoni, tweeted, “This will never get solved. My four-wheeler has a challan for a violation by a two-wheeler (difference of one character in registration) and it hasn’t been rectified till date. Have mailed multiple times… they said it will be fixed.”
Another chartered accountant, Deepak Rajgor, tweeted, “Even I am getting challans for someone using a fake number plate of my car; @MTPHereToHelp failed miserably to help me after several complaints in the last three years.”
Agreeing that such incidents are becoming more frequent, Senior Police Inspector Mohan Patil (DN Nagar traffic police) said that the complainant should contact the Dindoshi traffic police to lodge a formal complaint as his area (Malad East) falls under their jurisdiction.
Senior Police Inspector Mukund Yadav said, “We submit such numbers and other details about the vehicle to our multimedia team, which can feed an alarm into the system which will beep the next time it detects the number plate.” He said people need to lodge complaints in the traffic mobile application for the police to proceed with the investigation.
