50 bikers booked for racing in Vikhroli

Mumbai: The Vikhroli police over the past month booked 50 bikers for racing and rash driving. Sources in the department said that due to heavy nakabandi at Reclamation and Bandra-Kurla Complex (BKC) on Saturday and Sunday night, some bikers had started racing their bikes along the Vikhroli-Airoli stretch. Meanwhile, the BKC stretch continued to see a constant flow of bikers wreaking havoc at night.

Shreedhar Hanchate, senior police inspector, Vikhroli police station, told The Asian Age, “Since the stretch from Godrej signal at Vikhroli to a point in Airoli has no signals at all, bikers treat it like a race track to ride their bikes at high speed. This has become a trend ever since there has been tight nakabandi at Bandra Reclamation and BKC during weekends.”

“We have also put up barricades at various points in Ramabai Nagar and Tagore Nagar to curb the biking menace late in the night.  The whole point of taking these measures is to put a stop to this nuisance before it becomes a full-fledged trend,” he said.

The Mumbai traffic department has even installed speed cameras worth `25 lakh at various spots where bikers are seen riding dangerously, often performing stunts. Despite all these measures however, police is unable to curb the biking menace in the city.

Sonal Shinde, a lead-site operator working for Godrej and a resident of Godrej Colony, said, “I have two little daughters who want to go for late night drives on weekends, but my husband and I are aware of the biking menace at night and hence, we are forced to put our foot down.”

A police inspector on condition of anonymity said that despite putting up barricades at the mouth of flyovers, the bikers, who are already speeding, ride past the police in the fast lane upon seeing the bandobast, making it impossible for the police to catch them.