Watch: ‘Spirited’ protest triggers traffic snarl as cops stop drunk drivers in Hyderabad

Hyderabad: This was a ‘spirited’ protest and not the regular kind of protest you see on the streets these days.

On Sunday night, as the Asifnagar police began a drunk driving check at Gudimalkapur, the objective was met in a few minutes as a few persons, who had allegedly downed a couple of pegs, landed right in front of them. However, as the police, as the usual practice is, tried to detain their vehicles, the scene changed.

With a couple of them trying to prevent the police from seizing their vehicles, their dissent soon turned vociferous, with a few persons with them beginning to block other vehicles too. Soon a mob gathered and quite surprisingly, began raising slogans against the Traffic police, with some even crying hoarse that they wanted ‘justice’. They continued to block traffic on the road, arguing with other motorists and also with the cops, with a traffic snarl taking form at the spot in no time.

“A couple of persons who were caught during the drunk driving check prevented the police from shifting their vehicles. The local law and order police was informed and they came and dispersed the mob,” Asifnagar Traffic Inspector Sudheer Kumar said, adding that the traffic jam was also cleared slowly.

The police later booked a case against the drunk drivers and asked them to appear before court. It is learned that those who were stopped by the cops had consumed liquor at a nearby liquor shop and were driving back home when they were caught. It is also said that a few wine shop and bar owners in the area are unhappy with the regular drunk driving checks since it was ‘affecting’ their business and allegedly instigated a few of their customers to protest.