Road rage against policemen has touched extraordinary levels in Pune with as many 38 assaults on cops in the last three months. These include 23 cases of assaults on traffic policemen. Since January, motorists have beaten up 61 policemen and 180 persons have been arrested.
Pune police commissioner Satyapal Singh said this is arguably the highest number of assaults on policemen by traffic violators in any city in the country.
Speaking to journalists on Thursday, Singh expressed concern that the violators are mostly “educated middle-class citizens, including students and software professionals”.
The police force in Pune had acquired a “soft” image, which was resulting in “gross indiscipline” on the city’s roads, he said.
On Wednesday, a car driver abused traffic constable UD Ugale after the policeman put a jammer to the car on finding it parked in a no-parking zone in Aundh. The driver - an
educated middle-aged man - hurled abuses at Ugale, who was trying to explain the driver’s fault. The driver also broke the jammer and fled away in his car.
In the first week of September, Pratik Jagtap, 21, a resident of police colony at Aundh, beat up a constable after he was caught driving on a ‘no-entry’ road.
As such cases of assault on policemen increased, the Pune police decided to act. Last month, in a first incident of its kind, the police punished a software engineer by forcing him to perform the duties of a traffic policeman for two hours daily for five days. Manas Raju Baladu Kishor Khen, 27, had beaten up traffic constable Amol Sarde for asking him to pay a fine for breaking traffic rules at the Veltalbaba Chowk on Senapati Bapat Road, Singh said.
The poor police-population ratio was one of the reasons for poor policing in Pune, he said. Mumbai has a ratio of 350 policemen per lakh population, Nagpur has 203, but Pune has only about 146, he pointed out. “Pune is a city with a population of 60 lakh, and the city has just 700 police constables,” he said.
Joint commissioner of police Rajendra Sonawane said the police have decided to arrest those who attack policemen. He said the police will invoke section 202 of Indian Motor Vehicle Act, 1988, which allows the police to arrest delinquent motorists without any warrant. Invoking the section will deter motorists from violating rules, he said.
Policemen have been given strong batons and fibre sticks to counter attacks on them, he said.
