For Rs50, they would let anything into the city

Terror can earn a gatepass into the city for Rs50 only. Just a week after the 26/11 attacks, truckers were seen greasing the palms of the cops at Dahisar checknaka to get truckloads of consignments into the city, unchecked.

On Wednesday, DNA visited the checknaka and found that the two policemen posted there to “check” vehicles entering and leaving the city were slack in their duty.

Over 200 heavy vehicles entered Mumbai through the checknaka in a span of two hours. Drivers of most of the trucks and tempos bribed the policemen. The cops did not even perfunctorily check those vehicles. They did not check the documents of the vehicles either.

Very often, the drivers had cash ready in their hands as the vehicles neared the checknaka. The policemen then approached the drivers and slyly collected the money from them.

“On an average, around 150 trucks and tempos enter Mumbai in an hour through the chechnaka,” truck driver Mohan Chaudhary, who has to often pass through the checknaka, said. “The police are supposed to properly check the vehicles and the consignments they carry. But, often, they take bribe from the drivers and let the vehicles pass,” he said. Drivers of trucks and tempos from within Mumbai and its suburbs have to pay a minimum of Rs50, while those from outside the city have to shell out Rs200, Chaudhary said. “The amount is much more if the police happen to find that the papers are not in order.”

It is not possible to check each and every vehicle, an officer of the Dahisar checknaka police chowkie said. Vehicles are checked if the police find something suspicious about them, he said.

p_manish@dnaindia.net