Hyderabad cops want fingerprints to keep tabs on violators

Hyderabad: Hyderabad traffic police will use thumb impressions to nail motorists guilty of multiple violations.

They will recommend to the Road Transport Authorities (RTA) to suspend driving licenses of repeat offenders based on the finger prints.

The traffic police at present has shortlisted the names of only multiple offenders of drunken driving cases whose licenses will be suspended if found repeatedly driving in an inebriated condition.

In future, the traffic cops plan to recommend to the RTA authorities to suspend licenses of even those who are found to be repeatedly violating traffic rules like signal jumping, wrong parking, driving in the wrong direction, talking on the cell phone while driving, not wearing seat belts etc.

While booking cases, traffic cops will take finger prints of the violators. It will also help in nailing criminals as even the law and order police is going to acquire mobile finger printing handsets and create an online data to identify criminals on the spot.

For example, if an alleged criminal is at large and is caught violating a traffic rule, his or her finger print will help the police to identify whether the person is wanted or is in the absconding list.

“Even if a person is driving a vehicle with a changed number plate and fake documents, the finger print and available database with the police will help us to identify the violator’s correct identity,” a senior traffic inspector said.

Deputy Commission-er of Police, Hyderabad Traffic, A.V. Ranganath told DC that taking finger prints of motorists would help the cops build up a database of an individual and his or her list of traffic rule violations.

“We are taking legal opinion on how to go about with this finger print project. We want to have a system which can read the fingerprints of the driving license, the Aadhaar card and the one taken by the traffic police from the motorist on the same software. As the driving license and Aadhaar card also have finger prints, we will have exact details about the candidate and a database can be built for all motorists,” Mr Ranganath said.