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Our Reporter
Dimapur, May 19 (EMN): Around 6,500 people have been penalised for violating traffic rules till date this year in Dimapur, and penalty amounting to about INR 7 lakh has been collected within a short time, Commissioner of Police, Dimapur, Rothihu Tetseo informed on Wednesday.
The police officer said at a press conference that they were charging defaulters only INR 100, ‘which is minimum, otherwise they can even impose a fine of up to INR 5000 under the new Motor Vehicle Act’.
While terming the high amount of penalty collected as an achievement for the police, he said: “I don’t appreciate this because this is a serious concern and it is not a good sign if people violate and a policeman has to enforce.”
“This is not a law and order issue, but it is a pandemic issue, an individual’s responsibility and all of us should restrain ourselves,” he stated.
He also informed that more than 5000 people were caught flouting SOP, including not wearing masks. He appealed to the citizens to ‘respect themselves’ and assured that they would try to give their best in this situation.
He stated that Dimapur team (DTF) is doing well so far and the law and order situation is ‘under control.’ He added that criminal cases had come down during the pandemic.
One area of concern is that there are many individuals who share opinions on social media accounts and because of this, there are lots of misunderstandings, misinformation and rumours, he said, adding that sometimes the news may be true but many policemen are wasting their time investigating such matters.
‘I will not say it is social media, but this individual opinion in their account, most of the time we debate too much. One person will give his or her opinion and one thousand more will comment,’ he said.
“We encourage true stories and positive efforts and individual opinion which is good for the people at this juncture, but unnecessary stories about just their personal view and unnecessary debate waste their time as policemen have to do investigation,” he stated.
He thus appealed to everyone not to take one unfortunate accident as a “great opportunity to go for high and wide coverage but we should try to cover it with a positive attitude so that there is no misunderstanding”.
He informed that so far, two policemen posted in Dimapur have succumbed to Covid-19 this year.