Chandigarh: Thief on joyride leaves car owner with eight challans in 22 days
Just a few days after the January 15 theft, the car was caught violating the traffic signal at the Sector 16/17 light point on January 23, again at the PGI roundabout on January 26 and for the third time in Sector 25 on January 27
A vehicle thief, who made off with a Maruti Suzuki Zen car parked outside a house in Sector 37 on January 15, is having a field day in Chandigarh—breaking traffic laws left and right.
Since the car was stolen, the thief has been committing several traffic violations, racking up a staggering eight challans in just 22 days. Interestingly, all challans have been issued through Chandigarh’s CCTV traffic surveillance network, yet the local police have been unable to catch the thief and return the vehicle to its rightful owner.
The result: already grappling with their vehicle’s loss, Harbhajan Singh and his wife Soma Devi are now burdened with multiple online challans issued in his name.
An upset Soma Devi questioned whether police’s hi-tech CCTV cameras were just for challaning. “Our car has been stolen and on top of that we are being harassed with repeated online challans. Not once or twice, our car has been challaned a whopping eight times. We’ve gone to the police, asking them to act based on the CCTV footage and apprehend the thief. But all they tell us is to locate the car ourselves and inform them. Is this how the Chandigarh Police operate?” alleged an exasperated Devi.
The stolen car has been caught on cameras committing various offences—dangerous driving, jumping red light and violating zebra crossings—all across the city.
Just a few days after the January 15 theft, the car was caught violating the traffic signal at the Sector 16/17 light point on January 23, again at the PGI roundabout on January 26 and for the third time in Sector 25 on January 27.
The violations continued in February, with the car jumping the red light on February 1 and February 2 near Bapu Dham and Shastri Nagar. On February 5, yet another challan was issued for a zebra crossing violation and the same day, the car was spotted at the Kalagram light point as well.
Attempts to contact the Chandigarh Traffic Police and the station house officer (SHO) of the Sector 39 police station for comments went unanswered.