CHENNAI: Ten luxury cars were seized and a driver of one of the vehicles was booked when a group of youngsters who were allegedly driving in a rash manner on the East Coast Road (ECR) early on Sunday morning hit a police inspector who tried to stop them.
One of the persons who was driving a Lamborghini is said to have run the vehicle over the foot of the inspector when a police team tried to stop the cars with modified silencers that were creating a deafening noise. While the Lamborghini’s driver Raghav Krishnan was booked under IPC sections 506 and 336, he was released on bail by the police later in the day.
“We tried to stop them near Akkarai on ECR, but they did not stop and zipped past. Then we posted more personnel at Uthandi tollgate and managed to stop them there,” said a police official involved in the operation.
Raghav Krishnan allegedly continued to speed, injuring a police inspector. It is not clear if the persons driving other cars were booked. However, police sources said a total of 10 cars were seized and taken to the Kanathur police station.
“We formed special teams to check bike and car racing on ECR following repeated complaints from the public. We had posted more personnel in the early-morning hours since most racers use the stretch on weekends,” said Neelankarai Traffic Inspector Soundararajan.
As the police moved the cars to the roadsides in front of the Kanathur police station, locals thronged the spot and took selfies in front of the high-end cars, which included a Porsche and a Ferrari, besides the Lamborghini.
While police officers said the youngsters, presumably hailing from affluent families, were highly uncooperative during the enquiries, a few of them took to Facebook, posting a video claiming that the police officials were harassing them. In the 14.07-minute-long video, a person claimed that all high-end cars make a loud noise, which the police mistook for racing. He also said the police had asked them not to drive in groups as it was a public nuisance and caused noise pollution, but did not give any evidence. “We have been charged with betting. We would bet in international circuits and not in India,” the man in the video said. He also claimed that all his friends met near VGP and were headed to Kovalam to attend an event by Lamborghini.