MAN HELD FOR VANDALISING 17 TOLL BOOTHS IN GURUGRAM

GURUGRAM: A man was arrested Thursday for allegedly vandalising 17 toll booths at Kherki Daula toll plaza in Gurugram district and assaulting staff after he was not given free passage immediately.

The suspect, Hoshiyar Singh (46), a former chairman of Gurugram block committee, is exempt from paying the toll as he is a resident of Naurangpur village near the plaza. Investigators said the incident took place at 10.40pm Wednesday, when Singh was to pass through the plaza to reach his village, and entered lane number 10 to find a pickup van ahead of him.

“A pickup van was ahead of Singh’s car. However, automatic deduction of toll could not take place because the van’s FASTag didn’t have money. So, the staff began to manually collect the money from the van driver,” said Inspector Rajender Singh, station house officer of Kherki Daula police station.

Singh allegedly lost his temper over the delay, and took out a wooden bat from his car and started smashing the window panes of the toll booths at the plaza one after the other.

His vandalism was caught by CCTV cameras. The footage shows him moving from one lane to another, signalling vehicles to either stop or pass through to make space for him as he went about vandalising the booths, police said.

“He was involved in such incidents at the plaza earlier, too,” said the SHO. Jitender Singh, a senior staff person at the plaza, said Singh slapped a lane attendant, Vijender Singh, who was helping the commercial vehicle in paying the toll, multiple times.

“He then took out a wooden bat, hit a toll collector, Rohit, who was sitting inside the booth, hard on the head,” he said.