TEAM HERALD
CALANGUTE: The Mapusa Traffic Cell personnel caused chaos and panic among the motorists travelling to and fro Calangute-Mapusa at Parra on Tuesday.
The Mapusa Traffic Cell team started issuing challans to motorists without helmet during the peak hours — school closing hours. The parents who had gone to school to collect their children along with others were issued challans by the Mapusa Traffic Cell team. The traffic police parked their jeep and motorcycles near the temple at Lingabhat, Parra and started stopping motorists travelling to and fro Calangute-Mapusa.
A few motorists, especially the youth, either riding without licence or helmets started speeding up to avoid the traffic police. In one such incident, a woman with her two school children was knocked down by a modified sports biker travelling towards Calangute.
The youth, noticing the traffic police, took a sudden turn towards Mapusa and knocked down the woman with two school going children. Since the youth was slow, the woman and her two children were unhurt in the accident. The woman was helped by the locals, while the youth apologized and fled from the scene cursing the traffic police for the drive.
The locals and motorists also cursed the Mapusa traffic police for the drive during the peak hours. A few motorists including parents questioned the motive behind drive.
“The traffic police are ever willing to carry out such drives either for helmets or documents, etc, but why do they lag behind in carrying out similar drives against rash and negligent driving on our village roads? We find youth riding and driving in a rash and negligent manner, but nobody bothers. The death on roads could be brought down by controlling rash and negligent driving not by drives on helmets” said Clive Dias.
“The police trouble, harass and punish only locals and law abiding citizens. The youth could have caused serious injuries to my children, but the police are more interested in issuing challans,” said Salma Kudnekar.
. The Police should stop harassing locals on village roads as it leads only to more accidents and nothing else” said Salma Kudnekar.
