The district police have launched a crackdown on Light Motor Vehicles (LMVs) with number plates bearing “IND” marking by registering cases against such vehicles and arresting nine sticker shop owners who supplied the number plates.
Acting on the directive of the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court, the police launched the drive on Monday and booked 85 car owners with the defective number plates with “IND” marking and imposed a fine of Rs 100 on each, Superintendent of Police N.M. Mylvahanan said on Tuesday.
He said the vehicle owners were advised to replace the number plates with the ones authorised by the Regional Transport Office. Even as the high-security registration number plate system with IND marking was yet to be introduced in the State, the sticker shops cheated the vehicle owners by supplying defective number plates.
Enquiries revealed that a dozen shops in the district procured the number plates with a fake hologram from makers in Melur in Madurai district, Coimbatore and Chennai, and supplied them to the vehicle owners for a commission, the SP said. Nine sticker shop owners in Chathirakudi, Paramakudi and Ramanathapuram were arrested and cases were booked against them under Sections 420, 465, 468, 471 and 511 of the Indian Penal Code, he said.
The drive would continue and action would be taken against the vehicle owners and those who supplied the number plates, the SP warned. Enquiries revealed that some of the number plates carried seven-digit laser-imprinted number and even some government vehicles carried such defective number plates.
Regional Transport Officer (RTO) J. Sheik Mohamed said the department had also launched the drive and was imposing fine as per the provisions of the Motor Vehicles Act, 1989. He said the tamper-proof high-security number plate with a bar code had been introduced only in Delhi, Sikkim and Goa.
The district had 6,763 registered cars and the defective number plates with IND markings were mostly used in own cars. As cabs were subjected to a thorough check once in a year, those who owned the vehicles did not use such number plates, he added.
