Under heavy fire following the rape of a 27-year-old executive in an Uber cab, the Delhi Police claimed to have checked close to a thousand taxis carrying female passengers during a dedicated drive aimed at ensuring women’s safety and prosecution against drunken driving.
According to the Traffic Police, a drive consisting of random checking of taxis carrying women over the previous week led to stopping and subsequent checking of 1,423 vehicles.
Police sources said the drive was initiated in accordance with instructions from the Union Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) earlier this week, during which the Delhi Government Transport Department and the Traffic Police were asked to enforce a ban on commercially-registered but privately-owned vehicles plying in the Capital.
“We already have programmes that consist of weekend drives against different specific offences under the Motor Vehicles [MV] Act like drunk driving and permit violation by heavy truck vehicles. This time, we extended the scope of the drive to include verification of vehicles carrying passengers in commercial capacity and will continue such drives in future, too,” said a senior Traffic Police officer.
During its week-long drive against taxis and cabs, the Traffic Police claimed to have impounded 527 vehicles for violation of permit conditions, in addition to issuing fines to as many as 3,851 drivers for the same offence.
In addition to enforcing the newly-issued government orders aimed at reigning-in cabs currently in operation in the Capital, the Traffic Police claimed to have verified 1,073 taxi stands across the city.
Meanwhile, a special drive against drunken drivers, which was carried out on Friday evening and saw deployment of as many as 106 checking teams across the Capital, led to issuance of fines to 239 persons who were found to have consumed alcohol over the permissible limit of 30 ml and seizure of 193 vehicles.
