2,68,995 PEOPLE BOOKED FOR NO HELMET

Pillion rider helmet rule is on in Kerala, Delhi, Bengaluru and Chennai

The police have booked 2,68,995 persons till April this year for riding two-wheelers without a helmet and have collected `2.69 crore as penalties. For the first-time violator, the fine is `100 and the second-time violator has to shell out `200. According to the Hyderabad traffic police, as the fine is miniscule, two-wheeler riders prefer to pay the fine rather than wearing a helmet. The police said that counselling can make a difference as it had happened in the case of drunken driving. Hyderabad traffic police DCP AV Ranganath said, “Since violations are increasing, we have made it a point for violators to attend counselling sessions.”

The recently launched penalty points system has done its part to curb violations. “We have noti-ced a decrease in the nu-mber of violators for the past two weeks as the penalty points system came into force,” said M Vinod Kanumula, chief functionary of the Indi-an Federation of Road Safety. The details of the penalty point system are entered and stored in the database of Road Trans-port Authority (RTA) for two years. “If a person’s penalty points exceed 12 within 24 months, his/her driving licence is suspended for one year,” said an official. A newborn girl was found abandoned at the Mahatma gandhi bus station on Monday. The baby was shifted to Shishu Vihar.

Police said on Monday morning passengers on platform No: 50 saw a baby wrapped in a pink cloth and alerted the police. The police outpost staff and a patrol rushed to the spot and shifted the baby to the outpost at the bus station and alerted Childline.

Police registered a case and set up a team to find those who abandoned the child.

“The baby is around six days old. We are also checking CCTV cameras at the bus station. We could see someone putting the child at the spot but as the footage is not clear we are enhancing it,” Afzalgunj SI R. Nagaraj said.

Buses bound for Sangareddy and Medak districts depart from Platform No: 50.