Thiruvananthapuram: Youth invites trouble on parking privilege'

THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: A youth who questioned the rationale of booking him for wrong parking has faced the wrath of the  city police,  while a police bus parked nearby was spared. The incident happened on a day when the centre decided to take off beacon lights from the VIP vehicles to do away with the undue benefits they enjoyed. Deepu Divakar, a businessman, has been slapped with a case and his new car suffered damage  to the tune of about Rs. 25,000 as the police towed  away the vehicle. Deepu is planning to petition the state police chief seeking justice. The videos and pictures related to the incident are also being widely circulated on the social media.

According to Deepu, he parked his car on the side of the Power House road near the rear entrance of  the central railway station as he had to see off a relative on April 19 morning. As he returned after about 30 minutes, a sticker imposing fine for ‘offensive parking’ was pasted on his car. But a bus of the CRPF that was parked behind his car had no  such notice. Deepu said he enquired with the sub-inspector, who was standing beside,  what offence he had committed. As the sub-inspector said it was a no-parking area, Deepu pointed out that a no-parking board was not displayed there. He also asked if what action was taken against the CRPF bus parked just behind his car. As it led to a heated argument, the sub-inspector pasted an ‘offensive parking’ sticker on the CRPF bus, though he earlier maintained that the matter would be taken up with the CRPF authorities.

As more people gathered at the spot, the sub-inspector passed on some message over wireless. “Subsequently, a team of police officials and a pick-up van reached the spot. The police said they were towing my car to the Pattom traffic police station as instructed by DCP (Arul B. Krishna) and asked me to come to the station. As I went to the station in the afternoon, my car was parked on the roadside with its A/C condenser, chassis and bumper damaged,” said Deepu. The police slapped a case against him under section 283 of IPC for ‘danger or obstruction in public way or line of navigation’ and he was arrested and release on bail of two persons.