The Pune City Traffic Police have launched a drive to remove abandoned vehicles occupying the roads across the city.
The cops are pasting notices on these vehicles, asking the owners to remove them within three days. If they aren't removed, the vehicles will be considered unclaimed property, and be seized by the police.
Reportedly, there are over 4,000 abandoned vehicles in the city.
This action comes after a 37-year-old man, Dattatraya Ramdas Gade, allegedly raped a woman inside a parked state transport bus at Swargate depot in Pune city on February 25.
Additional Commissioner of Police Manoj Patil said, "In the last one week, we have seized 139 vehicles, including private cars and two-wheelers. Sufficient time was provided to vehicle owners to claim the vehicles, but they did not call or respond to the notices pasted on them."
"The roads are for public use and not for parking. These vehicles remain parked on the main arterial roads as well as internal lanes. They block vehicular movement by taking up a major area of carriage width," he added.
Meanwhile, the Maharashtra State Road Transport Corporation (MSRTC) too has removed the buses abandoned on the premises of the Swaragte depot. The buses had been left unattended, with several items such as condoms, innerwear, saris, blankets, liquor bottles and cigarette packets found inside them. Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Vasant More had alleged that these abandoned buses were being used as lodges by miscreants and that no action was taken against them.
Promod Nehul, MSRTC's Pune division controller, said, "The unused buses have been removed from the Swargate ST stand and moved to the MSRTC workshop at Dapodi. They will be sold in a scrap auction later."
