Jugaad! Innova Driver Uses Autorickshaw Number to Avoid Challans, Caught

From hiding behind masks to stealing new number plates, traffic violators are finding new ways of ‘jugaad’ to escape challans. Case in point — the Hyderabad Traffic Police on Wednesday filed a case against a driver for using a fake registration number.

While conducting routine checks in the city, traffic cops became suspicious when they spotted an Innova bearing a white number plate ‘TS 07 UC 7162’. They pulled up the driver and checked the registration certificate following which it was revealed that the car was a commercial vehicle operating with a duplicate number plate.

“Commercial vehicles have yellow number plates which begin with UVW series, but the Innova in question had a regular number plate with a commercial number. The driver confessed that his owner had asked him remove the original number plate and acquire a fake one to escape traffic challans”, said Prasad, Banjara Hills Traffic Police Inspector, who caught the driver red-handed.

Further investigations revealed that the Innova driver had three challans against him for overspeeding, but all the invoices were sent to the owner of autorickshaw ‘TS 07 UC 7162’. A criminal case has now been registered against the driver and the owner of the Innova by the Law and Order wing of the Banjara Hills police station.

While violators are finding new ways to dupe the police, traffic cops have stepped up their crackdown on vehicles with dubious number plates. This year so far, 1,13,824 cases have been booked under the Motor Vehicle Act and 78 criminal cases have been lodged against 81 vehicles.