Drunk driving cases up 100% on Holi over last year

The continuous awareness campaigns of the Mumbai police to curb drunk driving in the city seemed to have fallen on deaf ears on Holi. The city police caught hold of 743 motorists who were driving on Mumbai's streets under the influence of alcohol.

In a coordinated crackdown, the city police and the traffic police penalised 11,018 motorists for several traffic violations on Friday. The maximum number of motorists were booked for riding without a helmet, speed violation, and drunk driving.

According to the statistics provided by the Mumbai police, 4,400 motorists were riding without helmets and 25 were booked for rash driving.

While 186 were booked for riding triple seat, 2,403 were booked for speeding. Sources said that the police had barricaded areas from where untoward incidents had been reported in the past and deployed personnel.

"Nearly 2,000 police personnel were deployed on the streets to keep a check on those violating traffic rules and this has yielded results. The introduction of Hightech CCTV cameras, speed cameras, e-challans and advanced digital breathalyzers is proving to be useful to get the hold of violators," said a senior traffic police officer.

During Holi last year, the city traffic police had booked 317 persons for drunken driving. In total 4,531 instances of drunken driving and other violation of traffic rules including triple-seat and helmet-less riding were reported in the city.

Precautionary measures like the formation of anti-eve teasing squads, night patrolling, city-wide nakabandis and deployment of women constables were taken to maintain law and order. Mumbai police had deployed 6,500 policemen in addition to the 2,500 traffic cops to ensure no untoward incidents take place on city streets.