It isn’t just vehicles that choke the roads leading to one of the largest IT park clusters in the city. Underneath the bumper-to-bumper traffic, a common sight on the stretch between Silk Board junction and Bellandur, are tiny nails strewn on the road in the hope that one man’s misery will be another’s business opportunity.
Benedict Jebakumar, a techie who for the past four years has been scouring the streets during his commute to and from work, says he found a “record” 1,654 nails on the stretch last Monday.
‘Largest find’
This, he said, is the largest find since he began this nail scouring exercise using a magnetic contraption he had created.
According to Mr. Jebakumar, the number would have been higher if he didn’t have to stop the search after 45 minutes as his ‘nail pouch’ was full.
Since January, he has collected more than 6 kg of nails – a majority from this small Outer Ring Road stretch. “I remove them in the morning, but next morning they are back on the same spots. This is not just one or two shops…many view this as a business tactic,” he said.
Surprising persistence
While the ‘nail mafia’ is not new — there have been arrests in the past — its persistence is surprising.
Going by the comments on Mr. Jebakumar’s Facebook page ‘My roads, my responsibility’, the problem is widespread.
One motorist says his car tyres picked up two nails on Mysuru Road, while another says on the ‘record-breaking day’ his two-wheeler, apart from many trucks and lorries, was punctured on Outer Ring Road.
Modus operandi
The modus operandi is almost always the same. The car gets punctured, a ‘good Samaritan’ directs the motorist to a nearby mechanic. The mechanic gets steady business and the good Samaritan gets a commission.
In April last, after numerous complaints and the arrest of a nail distributor while he was in the act, the Madiwala police summoned owners of puncture shops in the areas for questioning. Two shops were closed down.
“We believed that the racket had subsided. But once we verify that nails are again being thrown on the roads, we will start the exercise again,” a senior police officer told The Hindu .
