Police seize more than 9,000 bikes since lockdown

KOLHAPUR: Kolhapur police have seized over 9,000 motorcycles and recovered Rs 23.56 lakh from the lockdown violators since March 23.
All the seized motorcycles have been kept at various police stations in the district. “All the actions we have taken against the motorcycle owners are under section 180 of IPC. Immediately after the lockdown was imposed, we started taking action against people that were found violating lockdown rules.Initially, we warned people on bikes but we soon realised that this was not sufficient enough to prevent people from coming on the road. So we started seizing their motorcycles after they were found roaming on the road for no valid reason. This helped us in keeping a check on the flow of people on the roads in the district,” said a senior police officer.
The officer said that they had strict orders from the start government and that was the reason they started taking action against the lockdown violators.
Maximum action was taken by police stations coming under Ichalkaranji jurisdiction, which witnessed more than 2,000 motorcycles seized. This was followed by Kolhapur city traffic branch which seized 1,353 vehicles. “A total of 2,000 motorcycles have been detained by all the police stations from Kolhapur city, apart from the action by the city traffic branch,” added the officer.