Distant CCTV lets bikers race away

Mumbai: A CCTV camera installed at a toll plaza on the 5.6-km-long Bandra-Worli Sealink (BWSL) could have been a key resource for the Bandra police in their efforts to clamp down on weekend bike races involving stunts at Bandra Reclamation. But as things stand, it is allegedly ineffective. The CCTV camera, installed at the spot from where the racing stretch begins, and reaching in extent up to a kilometre into Bandra — is “low-tech” and capable of providing only “grainy and unclear visuals” that are not good enough to identify those involved in the races or their bikes’ registration numbers, said a police officer.

The camera being at the point from where the race begins also makes it too far from the “real action”, so as to capture the bikes’ registration numbers, the officer added.

On Sunday, around 9.15 pm, a 22-year-old biker, Abhijeet Gurav, was killed and two others were injured after three motorcycles collided at this stretch, where several young men had allegedly been performing bike stunts. The police said that Gurav, a former courier firm employee, was at the stretch to watch the “bike race and stunts” and was standing by his parked bike, while the two other bikers who were part of the collision could have been participants in the said race.

“There is a CCTV camera installed at the toll plaza on the sealink. But it is useless for us to use it for identifying bikers participating in the races, which we are trying to do. The visuals thrown up by the CCTV are grainy and unclear,” said the officer from Bandra police station requesting anonymity.

He added, “The bikers usually have racing bikes with them and drive at 120 km per hour. The low-tech CCTV at the toll plaza is not capable of capturing such high-speed activities in a manner that could help us identify the bikers, who run away on seeing us or hearing the sound of a siren.”

The policeman even said that the bikers, at times, make fun of cops and sneer at them while fleeing the stretch, which is from the toll plaza to Kherwadi and passes by the “accident-prone” ‘U’ bridge with its sharp, blind curves. “They shout at us, make insulting signs and dare us to catch them,” he said.

When contacted, senior police inspector Pandit Nivrutti Thackeray said, “These bike races take place during the weekends and in spite of us deploying police vans, they flee the scene, often making fun at our expense.”

Catch them if you can:
The price range of racing bikes starts from Rs 1.85 lakh and can go upto Rs 5 lakh. Special modifications for racing, like installing a higher version piston ranging from 0-100, is made to these motorcycles. The bikers replace their normal engines with high-power engines starting from 350cc. The Bandra police has booked 52 bike riders this year for allegedly racing and participating in stunts at the U-bridge stretch in Bandra.