Frenzied mob on two-wheelers defied police ban on motorcycle processions in the city on the occasion of Muthuramalinga Thevar guru puja on Friday and gave anxious moments to road users on the city’s arterial roads.
Despite repeated announcements on public address system, appealing to the youths not to go on processions, several groups of bikers kept making noisy rounds at the Goripalayam junction since forenoon. The bikers, without helmets, made zigzag rides on the busy junction where hundreds of people were waiting in queues to garland the statue of the freedom fighter.
With many of them having tampered with their silencers, the high-speed vehicles made a din on the road causing panic among the other road users, especially those riding two-wheelers. Besides continuously honking the horns, the riders kept revving up the engines of their motorcycles.
ADVERTISEMENT
Most of the two-wheelers carried three persons. The pillion riders dangerously danced on the moving vehicles much to the alarm of onlookers. After coming to the junction and doing their daredevil acts there, they took the Alagarkoil Road, Panagal Road or Albert Victor Bridge only to come back again to the junction for an encore.
They did not bother about repeated warnings on the public address system that hi-tech closed circuit cameras at the junction would identify the violators and the police would reach their houses with the registration numbers.
At one point of time, some 25 motorcyclists came to the northern end of the AV Bridge and kept revving up their engines and honking. They also made rounds on the road blocking other vehicles, including a couple of buses that were stranded at the junction for a few minutes.
ADVERTISEMENT
20 vehicles seized
However, a police officer said that over 20 motorcycles were seized by the police later in the day for causing inconvenience to the public.
Meanwhile, Superintendent of Police Vijayendra Bidari said that the event went off peacefully without any untoward incident in the whole of the district. He said that around 440 vehicles had passed through the two check-osts at Silaiman and Malampatti on Thursday and another 570 passed on Friday.
“Most of the vehicles have returned and some are in the city for a public meeting. We will keep our vigil well beyond midnight till they returned,” Mr. Bidari said.