BENGALURU: A hit-and-run case which killed a 12-year-old has exposed a fake registration certificate (RC) racket in Bengaluru.
The racket was exposed after a Maruti Zen bearing the registration number KA-03 MD-4457 met with an accident on the Babusayapalya service road near a Ganesh temple. A probe into the car's antecedents showed that the Maruti had been registered as Santro.
The car hit a two-wheeler first and rammed two pedestrians, killing one of them and grievously injuring the other.
The pedestrian was identified as Boran (12).
Police said instead of helping the victims, the driver fled the scene. The car was subsequently seized by the Banaswadi traffic police.
“On the basis of leads provided by eyewitnesses, the driver Suresh was nabbed at the KR Puram railway station at 5 pm the same day. Under questioning, the driver confessed that he had no driving licence and that the vehicle belonged to a land dealer named Ramesh (50), resident of MM Garden at Babusayapalya. The car owner is being treated as an accused in the case for having given his vehicle to a driver without a licence, the police said.
During the course of the investigation, when registration details were sought from the Regional Transport Office (RTO) and Traffic Management Center, it was found that the car was actually registered as a Santro and not a Maruti Zen (2004).
"We also verified the engine and chassis number and learnt that no vehicle was registered by those numbers in their database. This exposed the fact that Ramesh was using a fake RC number,” police said.
The Banaswadi traffic police have filed an additional FIR against Ramesh and the Hennur police have registered a cheating case.
Investigations are under way to find how Ramesh managed to get a fake RC number and who assisted him in doing so.