Motorists going through the Jagadamba Junction on Thursday morning were surprised to see some persons standing in the scorching sun with placards, creating awareness on safe driving and hazards of drink-driving, and a couple of them substituting for traffic police.
While a few thought it was a citizen initiative, some stopped to ask the policemen on duty what was happening. It was only then that the real truth came out. They were serving punishment given by Third Metropolitan Magistrate Ch. Ramya in drink-driving cases. The five were sentenced by the court to do the duty of a traffic police for one day, apart from being slapped a fine of ₹500.
The five offenders were identified as Sanny Gujaral, P. Selot, 32, P. Suresh, 45, K. Ravindranath, 42, and V. Trinadh Teja (22).
According to ADCP (Traffic) K. Mahendra Patrudu, initially the offenders felt shy as they were exposed to people and the media. Later they realised their fault and took up the policing and awareness job seriously.
Good impact
Mr. Patrudu said that it was the first time in the city that a judge had given such a unique direction and it had a good impact. The police said that so far 107 motorists were sentenced for drink-driving in 2017 and around 30% of convicted drivers were auto drivers.
The city also has the dubious distinction of recording the maximum number of drink-driving cases in Andhra Pradesh. The police registered a total of 19,000 such cases in 2016 and a fine of ₹1.36 crore was collected from them.
