A few weeks back, on a fine Sunday afternoon I was seen tweeting about help required around Goregaon / Malad (Mumbai) to take a fraudulent Auto-rickshaw driver to a nearby Police Station. I had promised to share more details on my blog and here we go!

Yesterday Mumbai saw a flash strike by auto rickshaw drivers which apparently wasn’t called by their union. Newspapers are reporting hundreds of rigged auto meters lying at workshops as auto-walas panic to get them ‘un-tampered’ given the recent RTO drive against them. As my friend Sandeep RTs above … Only in India you can dare to go on a strike, justifying an act of cheating.

What happened that Sunday was a simple story. I took an auto from Andheri highway to Goregaon Oberoi Mall. The auto driver wasn’t in uniform and while that was least of my concern, as we reached the destination (Oberoi Mall, Goregaon) I realised he was trying to overcharge me. The meter reading was 4.80 and the auto-driver asked me for Rs 64.

I happened to knew the formula for calculating the auto-fare after the recent change in tariffs (Thanks M4Mum/Raxit). So when the auto rickshaw driver asked mr for Rs 64, I got a little suspicious and casually hit the calculator on my mobile. For the ones who want to note, the formula is x13 -2 (multiply the meter reading by 13 and subract 2 from the total.)

The calculation in my case came to 60.4 and not 64. A small difference. I confronted the auto wala and he showed me a fare card. It was certainly a fake one, for fares above Rs 80 his tariff card showed amounts higher by Rs 10 or more. I told him that he is cheating & he suggested me to forget the 4 rupee difference as a loan and asked me to go. Yes, WTF.

I took the fare card and told him to take me towards the mall on the opposite side, where there were quite a few police vans given it was near about independence day. The auto-wala realized that I am not going to relent and snatched the fake fare card from me. He agreed to go on the opposite side but insisted on holding the rate card with him. I had to choose, either hold on to the tariff card or protect the iPad in my hand.

I allowed him to hold the tariff card, but remained seated in the auto. As he took a U-turn towards the mall, he hit the right lane and went towards the highway, ignoring all instructions to stop at the mall. I panicked and called a Murtaza (a young entrepreneur) who was going to meet me at the mall. He was holding on to the rate card  until we crossed the mall but it had disappeared by the time we reached the highway. I quizzed and he told me its in his pocket.

Luckily I found a traffic constable at the highway right where we stopped and shouted for him to help. As the constable took stock of things, suddenly two original rate cards came out of the auto-walas pocket and the story changed to me not having enough money to pay him. I couldn’t believe that such inauthenticity is happening right in front of me. I called in my friend Murtaza to the highway and asked him and a friend accompanying him to look for the rate card that he might have thrown on the road near the mall. While I argued with the auto-wala, Murtaza and his friend returned 10 mins later with the fake rate card in their hands. Bingo, we had the proof now and we were 3 vs 1.

The auto-wala still remained arrogant and denied the charge. We insisted the constable to take him to the police station and were surprised when he just took his license and gave it to us, asking us to take him to the Police Station ourselves (the auto wala was expected to drive us down.) A couple of mins later the constable suggested that we leave him as he will get f****d at the police station. He even made the auto-wala apologize. I insisted on booking him.

We three took a seat inside the auto and asked him to head towards the police station. He moved a little ahead on the highway and started pleading us to leave him. Offered to take no money for the ride from Andheri and a little later even offered to pay Rs 200 to us. We told him in no unclear terms that we are all headed to the police station. He didn’t comply, took a U-turn on the highway and tried to drop us at Oberoi Mall.

Luckily we again ran into a couple of cops (this time not the traffic ones) and asked them for help. They gave the auto-driver some good gaalis, questioned him about the missing uniform and handed his badge to us (his license was already with us.) He asked us to be firm and take him to the Police station. And there we go again. The auto-wala tried his best on the way asking for forgiveness, stopped a couple of times, but it took a little polite gyaan that ‘the more he wastes our time, the more he will suffer’ for us to reach the police station.

At the police station one of the cops just asked us to drop him there, leave my contact details and go away. No report, no paper work, nothing! We knew nothing about the regulations. They said he would be fined. We insisted on knowing what action they are taking and after spending some 20 mins at the police station, we left. Last we saw was the fact that he had been taken inside and they were in process of charging him. We were told that he would be made to wait there for several hours and it makes no sense for us to wait there. Guess we had enough for the day already …

The total incident lasted little over an hour, was intense and I was scared on multiple occasions.  If it was so much effort to just take a certainly corrupt auto rickshaw driver to Police Station, I wonder what happens in bigger cases. God bless the system.

Special thanks to Murtaza and his friend (guess Gaurav) for the support.

Things happened in a hurry and this is the only photo I could manage to click in between the chaos. After we reached the police station, I was out of time to click any more.

As always, most commenting on the post is on FB. You can see it here

]]> http://annkur.com/2011/09/the-day-i-took-an-auto-driver-to-police-station/feed/ 6 http://annkur.com/2011/07/mumbai-blasts-collecting-important-info/ http://annkur.com/2011/07/mumbai-blasts-collecting-important-info/#comments Wed, 13 Jul 2011 14:53:27 +0000 Mumbai Blasts http://annkur.com/?p=948 JULY 13 2011 – 8:11PM

3 Blasts in south mumbai reported. Its less than an hour since I have heard of the news, Twitter is overflowing with info and I think it’s best to have good info at one place. I am collecting some tweets and links here.

Mumbai Help Blog RT @b50: The blog is up: http://j.mp/r5SUaF

#MumbaiBlasts Great spreadsheet with all Help/Contact Nos. RT @notdanwilkerson: http://j.mp/n1HnW8

Round up of people willing to shelter: Nos/twitter handle /areas: pass on to people who need wp.me/pwhKq-er

STUCK?

• If you’re stuck at Dadar, please go to @VJTI or @UDCT. You will find assistance there. via @sengupta. (For people stuck at Dadar: @VJTI hostel is available to stay in (walking dist. from Kabootar Khana). Contact Suraj Kute @ +91 9975742595)

Veermata Jijabai Technological Institute
HR Mahajani Marg,, Matunga,
Mumbai, Maharashtra 400019
Telephone +91 022 24146972

INSTITUTE OF CHEMICAL TECHNOLOGY (UDCT)
Nathalal Parekh Marg,
Matunga, Mumbai-400019. (India)
Telephone:  91  22  33611111/2222. Fax No:  91  22  33611020

• Police Control Room #Mumbai 22621855 22621983, 22625020, 22641449, 22620111 etx 100 (Not sure if they would be reachable, worth a try)
• RT @dakshjuneja: Also sharing my landline number #### if u r in Chembur and need help of any kind ….  #Mumbaiblasts
• Vishal: Folks, I stay near Siddhi vinayak. If you need any help…Acco etc call me/text me at ####” #Here2Help

HOSPITALS

• At Zaveri Bazaar, the closest hospitals are JJ Hospital (022-2373 5555), St. George (02222620109)  and Bombay Hospital (02222067676)
• Near Dadar, the closest hospital is Hinduja (near Mahim): 02224452222 (via @sengupta)
• KEM (022-24136051), Nair (022-23085379), Harkishandas (23855555 / 30095555), Saifee (22 6757 0111)  #MumbaiBlasts
• Other hospitals near Dadar: Dhanwantari (behind Shiv Sena bhavan) and Sushrusha hostpital (near Ovenfresh, Shivaji park)

NEWS

• Sea Link is open. Western and Eastern Express Highways open. Traffic affected,. but moving. #MumbaiBlasts (via Mid Day)
• Near Dadar, the closest hospital is Hinduja (near Mahim): 02224452222 (via @joannedsouza)
• Huge traffic jam on marine drive going towards babulnath. Avoid if you can. #mumbaiblasts #traffic
• Traffic was all clear from Dadar Portuguese Church to Marine Drive when I came. Please don’t rush around madly.
• Taxis will go off roads at midnight. Take care. via @sidin (Sidin updates: I have been told WITHOUT CONFIRMATION, that taxis will stop plying post midnight. Check yourself please.) – UPDATE 2: Taxis will indeed not ply beyond midnight tonight in Mumbai. Union chief Mr Quadros has confirmed to @mid_day. Also hearing from @anaggh: Less taxis will ply post midnight as confirmed by the union, in order to avoid traffic. Sidin: Okay. It appears that taxis will ply after midnight.

Updated to remove personal phone nos / email ids.

This mail comes to you with a purpose. As you already know, the competition is only for the Bloggers who had certain association with Mumbai. The association may be staying in Mumbai, Having studied or worked in Mumbai or writing about Mumbai.. So we just wanted to know in what way you are associated with Mumbai..

A copy of my response below:

Namaskar Sajjano

Ham bambai wasi hai bachpan se. Yaha hi pale bade hai.

The blog annkur.com is my personal blog, and having been in Mumbai since childhood I am very much mumbaikar. Such that even MNS cannot refute.

In the last 10 years I have spent over 99.99% of my time in Mumbai. Probably more than Googles Guranteed uptime. (Plz calculate 10yrs – 7 days to get the ratio).

• So the girls I write about are Mumbaikars http://annkur.com/tag/girls/
• The police and Law and order I refer to,  is as in Mumbai http://annkur.com/2008/07/maintaining-law-and-order-isnt-easy-or-is-it/
• I watch Movies in Mumbai Multiplexes http://annkur.com/2009/02/zero-1/
• The photos I click are Mumbai Skies http://annkur.com/2008/12/moon-venus-jupiter-caught-on-camera/

And If you didn’t realise the ultimate proof. You asked for a simple reply and I gave a full डेड शयाना mumbaiya reply

March 2009

I head towards my office one morning just to see that things have changed dramatically overnight. Some water pipeline is being laid and the whole road is being dugged. The constant drilling along with a hot summer can really irritate a peace loving geek.

And a couple of days later I find myself dirt biking my way to office. The rubble laid next to the dugged up road with stones all over …

Though its not too difficult climbing them on my bike, but people on the streets and cycles made things a little tricky. Thankfully the pain of drilling machines all day just under my nose was over in some 10 days, I though it would go on for months… Here are a few shots and a video.

I remember the Titan guyz asking me if I can dirt bike (during the dirtbiking with John Abraham promotion) and I told them that biking in Mumbai prepares one for almost anything!