HYDERABAD: Another of the young and restless of the city’s brat pack had his brush with law on Saturday night as Tollywood actor Shiva Balaji of ‘Chandamama’ fame was booked for drunken driving.
V Surayachander Rao, traffic inspector, Jubilee Hills told Express that the actor was caught near the Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan school, while he was coming from Jubilee Hills to Manikonda locality where he resides.
“It was around 12.30 a.m when we noticed a Ford Fiesta (TN 41 S 4701) coming in a zig-zag fashion. We noticed the driver was sloshed and stopped him. Subsequently, using the breath analyser, we found that the alcohol content was 69 mg,’’ he added. After detaining the car, police booked a case against the actor under section 185 A and he was asked to appear before the Fourth Metropolitan Magistrate Court on Monday. Later, Shiva Balaji hired an auto to go home.
Interestingly, Shiva Balaji’s co-star in Chandamama, Navdeep Pallapollu has also been caught on the wrong side of law twice. The young hero was detained by traffic police at Banjara Hills while driving in a drunken condition and he had also been involved in allegedly manhandling a BTech student at a pub in Madhapur.
The Jubilee Hills traffic police also detained a film distributor for drunken driving.
Police said the distributor Sunil was issued a notice to appear before the court on Monday and his car detained.
Police also filed a case under Section 353 (assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from discharging his duty) IPC, after he got into a heated argument with traffic cops.
GVG Ashok Kumar, deputy commissioner of police (Traffic) said they have booked cases against 103 drunken drivers on Friday night, including 42 car drivers, 65 bike riders and six auto drivers. On Saturday, they booked 97 cases, out of which 34 were car drivers, 59 were on motorcycles and two auto drivers.