On Sunday, October 2, an allegedly intoxicated software professional, hit a mother and her daughter while speeding on the highway at Hayathnagar and left the five-year-old girl in a coma with severe head injuries.
On July 1, nine-year-old Ramya died after being hit while returning home from her first day at school. An allegedly drunk engineering student Shravil was to blame.
Rajesh, Ramya’s paternal uncle died on the spot while her mother Radhika and another uncle were admitted to the hospital. Her grandfather Madhusudhana Chary also died later.
On May 3, a 21-year-old B.Tech student K Devi, died after her reportedly drunk friend, S Bharat Simha Reddy, lost control of the car they were in, and crashed into a tree at Huda Enclave in Jubilee Hills.
On April 22, a biker, Shrikant, died and two others riding pillion suffered injuries when a Bolero driven by a reportedly drunk lawyer, Ranjan, rammed the bike near Family World in Begumpet.
On March 15, four medical students of Osmania University, including an allegedly drunk driver died and around 30 students were injured after the bus driver lost control of the vehicle and crashed into a tree at high speed.
New Year’s Eve alone saw a total of 1073 cases of drunk driving registered by the traffic police in the Hyderabad and Cyberabad commissionerates between 11 pm on December 31 and 3 am on January 1.
Despite several measures by the Hyderabad police, drunk driving continues to claim the life of many people and is leaving many more injured in road accidents in the city.
According to Jitender, ACP Traffic, the main reason for these deaths and injuries is due to the attitude of people towards their own safety and others safety.
“By September we have booked around 15,000 cases against drunk drivers and nearly 5,000 people have got imprisonment for drunk driving cases. Rest of the offenders were fined,” said Jitender.
To control drunk driving, the traffic police have held several awareness programs and meetings with bar and pub owners asking them not to serve liquor to people under 21 and to ensure that the person who will drive the car or bike remains sober.
In addition to that, they have recently started calling the spouses and parents of people caught for drunk driving to counsel them.
“I am not saying that the drunk and drive cases are fully controlled but it has gone down to a great extent,” he added.
This year, over 10,000 drunk and drive cases have been registered till June, whereas last year, nearly 16,000 cases were registered in total. In addition, more than 12000 cases have been registered so far in Hyderabad city alone. The number of cases registered, were higher in the age group of 20 to 25.
Cyberabad Police with Amrita Foundation - an NGO associated with substance abuse rehabilitation - has started a project called “counseling for drunk and drive” for all offenders held for driving under the influence of alcohol, so as to bring down the number of such cases in the city.
“We give counseling to more than 100 drunk and drive offenders every week, it is too early to say that the drunk and drive cases have come down or not because we have seen many repeat offenders,” said Dr. Devika Rani K, psychiatrist and director of Amrita Foundation.