Woman journalist injured in Navi Mumbai hit-and-run, biker escapes

NAVI MUMBAI: A Navi Mumbai based journalist Sandhya Jain (56), who writes on women's rights and safety, was badly injured in a hit-and-run accident recently on the Palm Beach Road, as a speeding motorcyclist jumped a red signal to crash straight into her scooty.

Shockingly, the culprit biker has not been caught due to "poor CCTV camera quality" as the registered number plate of the motorcycle could not be captured on camera on the city's landmark road stretch.

For the past nine days, Jain has been lying at Apollo Hospital at Seawoods with multiple fractures in both her hands, a nose fracture, facial trauma and various other smaller injuries.

Talking to TOI from her hospital bed, Jain said, "On May 18, I was driving my scooty in order to go to NMMC head-office at Belapur to meet a civic official for some work. As per the CCTV recordings of two cameras at the NRI Junction of Palm Beach Road, at exactly 4.39 pm, this biker wearing a maroon shirt jumped the red signal and speeded ahead to dash into my scooty, while I was moving forward as my traffic light was green at that moment."

Jain, who edits two magazines 'Women Zone' and 'Kanchan Kanika', added that as she fell down unconscious on the busy road, the biker simply lifted his motorcycle and slyly pushed it away from the accident scene in order to escape.

Her husband, Sandeep Kumar Jain, who resides at NRI Complex, said, "It is surprising that while an FIR has been registered at NRI police station against the unknown biker for reckless driving, he has not been arrested as we do not have his vehicle number. The accident happened in broad daylight on the supposedly best road of Navi Mumbai, where several surveillance cameras are installed."
The investigating officer (IO), Kiran Swar, of NRI police said: "We have checked some of the CCTV recordings at the time of accident in order to identify the culprit. However, the bike number plate is not properly seen in the video recordings. We are further inquiring into this matter."

Commissioner of Navi Mumbai Municipal Corporation (NMMC), Kailas Shinde, told TOI: "While NMMC does have a CCTV monitoring room at our Belapur head-office, the police also have a similar CCTV control room with them. They are the primary users of CCTV in order to check various traffic violations etc. Hence, the police should have reported earlier if there is any issue with the camera quality."
Shinde added that at present, a private agency is in charge for the maintenance of the CCTV cameras.

Social activist Madhu Shankar commented: "What is the use of such an extensive CCTV network in our city if the cameras cannot even capture the vehicle registration number. While Jain's hit-and-run accident took place in daytime, I wonder how vehicles will be identified at night if they are involved in any mishap. Both the NMMC and the police have to sort out this critical issue."

City based social worker, Rajesh Singh, of Ganga Sagar Foundation, commented: "I regularly use the Palm Beach Road while driving, and have noticed CCTV camera installations at various traffic signals and junctions. In case the cameras fail to capture the number plates, then they should be replaced with better high definition cams, which also have AI tools to do face recognition."