Ludhiana: Over 66K e-challans in 3 months; riders without helmet lead charts

The e-challaning system of the Police Commissionerate, Ludhiana, has been fully operational now. The high definition cameras installed at various intersections in the industrial hub have caught as many as 66,079 offenders from April to June for committing various kinds of traffic violations. The new system has been daily issuing over 700 challans on an average.

Details procured by The Tribune from the traffic police have revealed that out of the 66,079 challans, maximum challans of 36,192 were issued for riding without a helmet followed by 9,543 for wrong side driving, 7,835 for red light jumping, 5,592 for triple riding and 6,917 for crossing stop lines at zebra crossings.

Further segregating the data, it reveals that 17,356 challans for riding without a helmet were issued in April, followed by 10,346 in May and 8,490 in June. Similarly, 345 challans of wrong side driving were issued in April followed by 5,573 and 3,625 in May and June, respectively. Only 53 challans of red light jumping were issued in April followed by 2,841 in May and 4,941 in June through e-challaning.

The data further reveals that no challan of zebra crossing was issued in April. However, in the following months, 2,813 and 4,104 offenders were caught flouting the zebra crossing norms in May and June, respectively.

Regarding triple riding violation, 2,253, 1,463, 1,876 challans were issued in April, May and June, respectively.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (Traffic) Jatin Bansal said with the launch of the Intelligent Traffic Management System (ITMS), the Ludhiana police had been issuing e-challans through AI cameras and in coming days, AI cameras might be added to more locations in the city. Nine types of traffic violations were being detected, including riding without a helmet, pillion rider without helmet, triple riding, overspeeding, zebra crossing violation, wrong-side driving and wrong parking.

Bansal claimed that whenever a traffic violation was captured and a challan generated, an official message was sent to the vehicle owner along with a link for payment. One could also check the challan status on Parivahan app or other credible apps available on digital space.

Cyber criminals targeting people under garb of new system

With the launch of the e-challan system by the Ludhiana police, cyber fraudsters have also become active. AI-based cameras installed at 46 locations to monitor traffic violations are now being misused by the miscreants. Under the garb of the new system, they are sending fake e-challan messages to random people and tricking them into downloading malicious apps on their mobile. Many residents of the city have received such messages. The messages, under the pretext of paying a challan, asks users to download an APK file or click on a link to an unknown app. When the file is downloaded, it consumes mobile data and gives control of the phone to cyber criminals. The fraudsters can then steal sensitive information related to bank accounts, UPI and credit cards.