Hyderabad: Safety of seized vehicles becomes a challenge for police

Taking care of vehicles that were seized for lockdown violations is now turning out to be a major headache for the police in Hyderabad, Rachakonda and Cyberabad.

The police have so far seized more than one lakh vehicles, for various lockdown violations, during checking conducted at checkposts, on main roads, colony roads and other stretches since the lockdown began. All the impounded vehicles are kept at temporary vehicle deposit centres created on main thoroughfares by barricading the roads. They are also being kept in private garages, parks and school compounds.

“We are identifying open spaces and after talking to managements or owners, are keeping the seized vehicles in such places. Otherwise some road near the police checkpost is barricaded and the vehicles are kept there,” a police official said.

In certain police stations like Hussainialam, Chandrayangutta, Kalapather, Asifnagar and Chaderghat, the police have barricaded the main roads in front of the police station and are keeping the vehicles there. The safety of the vehicles is important, especially because of the resentment growing in the public every day.

“To ensure that there is no sabotage or arson by anti-social elements or opportunists, we are pulling out policemen from checkpost duties and deploying them at the places where the seized vehicles are kept,” a senior official said.

The already short-staffed police are now facing severe problems in deploying enough policemen to guard the seized vehicles as the police force is already being overworked while implementing the lockdown.

“There is the risk of fire mishaps as all the vehicles have fuel and during summer, the scope of a fire breaking out due to extreme heat conditions is always there. We do not have enough fire-fighting equipment either,” the official points out.