High drama over Audi on Kovalam beach

Chennai: A brand new luxury car was stuck in the sands of Kovalam beach near Chennai after the driver took the vehicle too close to the water on Wednesday night.The person who drove the SUV abandoned the vehicle at the beach. Cops with the help of local fishermen and an earthmover pulled back the unregistered Audi Q3, a compact SUV, which was inching into the sea, on Thursday.  

Though later in the day, a man named D. Williams who runs Yuva Foundations in Porur, approached the Kelambakkam police to claim the vehicle, the station inspector had decided to hand over the vehicle to revenue divisional officer under section 102 of CRPC for further probe. (Any police officer may seize any property which may be alleged or suspected to have been stolen, or which may be found under circumstances, which create suspicion of the commission of any offence). The vehicle was also found in a damaged condition, the police said.

Williams told the police that his brother-in -law took the SUV for a drive on East Coast Road along with his friends on Wednesday night. “When they stopped the car to eat snack the vehicle was stolen. The entire night we were all searching for the car,” claimed Williams. He also said that by mistake his wife’s brother had kept the car key in the vehicle itself.   

However the eyewitnesses said that they had noticed the SUV and a bike on the beach sand on Wednesday midnight. According to Moorthy Meghavan, who manages a surfing school in Kovalam, he saw the car and bike racing with each other in the night. “They made many rounds of trips on the sands.  Both vehicles were speeding on the sands. Such things do happen occasionally on the beach sand. But on Thursday morning when we woke up we saw only the car, stuck in the sand,” he told this newspaper.