The airport traffic police have arrested a 34-year-old private firm employee for masking the registration number plate of his motorcycle. Based on a complaint received on the social media account of the traffic police, the police tracked down the accused identified as Sudhir Kumar and handed him over to Mahadevapura police along with the motorcycle for further investigation.
Sudhir Kumar is among the 22 people booked for masking number plates in different parts of the city. The traffic police have launched a special drive and booked 1,13,517 cases against defective number plates and 1,535 cases against vehicle owners plying without number plate, ever since the drive started nearly three months ago.
“We will continue to book motorists who deliberately mask number plates or tamper them with a mala fide intention of misleading the enforcement cameras and officers,” M.N. Anucheth, Joint Commissioner of Police (Traffic), said.
In July 2022, the police began to install AI-based enforcement cameras across Bengaluru to keep a watch on traffic violators and book them under the appropriate sections of the law. However, unruly motorists especially two-wheeler riders found a novel way to dodge the surveillance. They used fake number plates and violation notices were sent to wrong vehicle owners and in many cases masked number plates.
Realising the increase in the number of such cases and disputes regarding wrong notices at the Traffic Management Centre, the traffic police launched a drive to flag down vehicles that were using fake registration number plates. They started booking criminal cases and launched massive awareness and surveillance campaigns with a stern warning.
Despite widespread surveillance, motorists resorted to using fake number plates to evade detection. To counter this, the traffic police launched drive since October 2023 to track down vehicle masking the registration number plates. Special teams were formed to investigate and track down the vehicles based on the complaint received on their social media account.
