RTO’s traffic drive(s) old woman to agony

The officers then asked the old woman to get out of the car because it was being impounded. “My grandmother, who cannot walk properly begged of them to let her remain in the car till they reached the police station so that she could call us,but they would not listen to her,” Wadhwan claimed.

Following an accident two years ago, Damayanti had had an iron rod inserted below her left knee, which made walking difficult for her. “Instead of sympathising with her condition, the two officers threatened her with arrest if she didn’t get out,” said Wadhwan. Forced out on to the streets, the frightened old septuagenarian had to walk a considerable distance before she could engage a taxi to take her home. Wadhwan claimed that by the time the ordeal ended, his grandmother suffered a rise in her blood pressure and is presently undergoing treatment.

Officials at the Chembur police station too confirmed the incident. “Why the two officials asked the woman to get down is still a mystery to me,” said sub-inspector Ravi Gidde. But no action has been taken against the officials in the absence of an official complaint. The RTO drive has been successful in that every day at least 200 vehicles are being impounded for lack of proper documentation but therehas also been a proportionate rise in the number of complaints of harassment by either RTO officials or traffic policemen.

Ravi Gupta (name changed), a resident of Mulund, called up Express Newsline to complain that last evening when he was on his way to Vile Parle he was asked to take a turn into a one-way street by a traffic policeman at Dadar. When he did so, he was immediately pounced upon by other traffic officials who asked him to shell out Rs 1000. “Though I was not at fault, there was no way I could get out from there unless I paid up,” he said bitterly.

Transport Commissioner V B Mathankar brushed off these allegations claiming that most of the vehicles do not have proper documents. “We have made public declarations that photostat copies of the papers will not be allowed, if people don’t read our instructions, we are not at fault,” he said.

Mathankar however admitted that asking passengers to get out of their cars did not form part of the rules. “We will inquire and if found guilty,the officials will be punished,” he said. He claimed that over Rs 44 lakh had been recovered as fines from 590 vehicles all over Maharashtra. “We are not interested in these drives, but if people don’t follow the rules, we are left with no other option,” he said.