Despite heavy bandobust, youth give police the slip at some places in city
Though there was no fatal or major accident on Saturday night when New Year revelry was at is peak, police booked 260 drink- driving cases against motorists, both two-wheelers and four-wheelers.
To control drunk drivers and bikers racing down the road, Traffic Police deployed 27 teams from Anandapuram to Parawada. The focus was on Beach Road from Coastal Battery to Rushikonda and five teams were deployed on this stretch alone.
In total, about 900 policemen, 300 from the traffic, 500 from the law and order wing and about 40 from the Armed Reserve, manned the roads to check drink-driving, racing and eve-teasing.
Traffic police also deployed 27 alcometers and 27 video cameras to film the booking of cases.
“Each of the 27 teams was given an alcometer and a video camera to check the level of alcohol and film the proceedings, which will be produced in court as evidence. Among the 260 cases booked, about 50 per cent were in the age group of 20 to 25 years,” said ACP (Traffic) Kinjarapu Prabhakar.
Despite the heavy bandobust, youth did give the police the slip at some places when they indulged in racing, including drag racing in some of the areas.
Post midnight, when the revelry reached a feverish pitch, a number of bikers were seen racing on the road between Tenneti Park and Rushikonda and on BRTS Road at Arilova.
Liquor sale up
The sale of Indian Made Liquor (IML) and beer from December 30 to 31 was Rs.15.39 crore in Visakhapatnam district. Last year, the total sale during the corresponding two days was Rs.12.77 crore. The average sale on weekends comes to about Rs. 3.4 crore to Rs. 3.7 crore, said a senior Excise official.
While IML sale was 31,266 cases, beer recorded a sale of 22,251 cases in the last two days. During the corresponding days in 2015, it was 26,839 and 16,870 cases. This shows that the revellers were not affected by cash crunch after demonetisation. Cashless transactions appear to be picking up at wine shops, said the officer.
About 50 per cent of the cases booked were against those in the age group of 20-25 years.
Kinjarapu Prabhakar
ACP (traffic)