High-visibility plastic bollards that were installed along the various arterial roads of Vimannagar barely 10 days ago, have now mysteriously vanished — almost overnight. Civic activists from the area are alleging deliberate defacement and organised theft by unknown “miscreants”.
The bollards were set in place by the Pune Municipal Corporation on the recommendation of the Pune traffic police after all the streets in the area had their one-way traffic restrictions removed.
According to residents, the streets — most of which are shorter routes to the New Airport Road — are often clogged with traffic due to lack of lane discipline and illegal parking by motorists. The orange plastic bollards, with reflectors, were installed at some of the busiest intersections such the Datta Mandir chowk and the Ganpati chowk.
But over the past couple of days, some of these bollards — vital for traffic control and regulation of speed within urban limits — seem to have have been deliberately removed or destroyed. A TOI team saw the bollards intact on Monday night at one location. By the next morning, they were gone.
“Even a couple of days ago, I found the bollards standing at the Ganpati chowk and near the Kailash supermarket. However, on Tuesday, I noticed that the bollards near the Kailash supermarket had been neatly sliced off — only the stumps, which had been nailed to the surface of the road remained. Is this not serious damage of public property? Who will pay for this?” asked Qaneez Sukhrani, citizen actvist and convenor of the Vimannagar Citizens’ Forum.
Police and officials from the municipal corporation have been left perplexed by the damage. Authorities admitted that bollards across the city were often found damaged because of impact from speeding cars and other heavy vehicles but said such damage was, in fact, unprecedented.
Sukhrani has now written to the airport police station to file an FIR against “miscreants” who damaged the bollards.
She has alleged theft and damage to public property.
Meanwhile, personnel from the airport police said they were studying CCTV footage from the area to determine if the bollards were stolen or damaged by a passing vehicle.
“These bollards are often damaged by speeding cars or other vehicles. But in the case of the ones at Vimannagar, we noticed that only the stumps of the bollards remain. We are conducting an investigation into the incident by studying the footage from the CCTV cameras in the area. We hope to identify the culprits after scanning the footage,” an officer from the airport police station said.
Source : TOI
