PANJIM: Taking serious note of the horrific Banastarim accident which snuffed out three innocent lives and to keep a tab on the increasing number of drunken driving cases, Superintendent of Police (Traffic) Akshat Kaushal has said that the Traffic Police will act tough on drunk drivers.
Addressing media persons in Panjim, Kaushal said, “The primary focus of the Traffic Police is to take action against anyone who is found to be driving or riding their vehicles under the influence of alcohol or any other intoxicant. And, whenever we find such instances we will take lawful action as prescribed. We have been taking action on drunken driving.”
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Reacting to the allegations levelled by a section of MLAs that traffic police were “unnecessarily” harassing the tourist during their stay in Goa, SP Kaushal said that the enforcement done by the traffic police is to ensure road safety for road users.
“We have briefed the Traffic Cell police inspectors that minimum inconvenience should be caused to tourist while ensuring that the law of the land is properly enforced. The idea is that people should not be inconvenienced in the exercise of challaning but challan should happen by ensuring that tourist and everyone finds themselves completely welcomed in Goa,” he said.
Stating that enforcement action will be initiated with “surprise element”, the Traffic SP said that police personnel will be told to take punitive action against the offenders in different and new places and not just concentrate in one area.
SP Kaushal denied the allegations of a scam in collection of fines from traffic violators through e-challan machines.
“It is true that the machines were logged into multiple devices but this is not a scam. You can term it a scam when there are financial irregularities. Here the fines collected were directly getting deposited in the government account. There is an issue of software, there is an issue of certain people who have forgotten to log out from their machines. We are also coordinating with National Informatics Centre who have developed this software and very soon we will come out with a solution for this,” he said.
He said that he will recommend departmental action if any police personnel is found misusing the e-challan machines.
SP Kaushal, who is also holding charge of Cyber Crime, said that cybercrime is rising amid digitalization and added that the Goa police is focusing on creating awareness among the public about the latest modus operandi adopted by cyber criminals to cheat innocent people.
“Through regular lectures in schools and colleges and through social media we are trying to create awareness about new kinds of cybercrimes which are coming up so that people are aware of such trends and they don’t fall prey to them,” he said.
