The Vijayawada police arrested six youngsters on Tuesday after videos showed them speeding and performing dangerous stunts on the city's Krishna Lanka National Highway (NH 65) and Durga Varadhi Road.
Videos of the incident, which did the rounds on WhatsApp, showed that the youngsters were putting themselves and other commuters on the road at risk with their dangerous stunts.
The arrested have been identified as A Nikhil (23), M Mahesh (19), A Siva (20), N Raghuram (22), Srinivas Praveen (19) and S. Ranjit, (21).
The police said that all of them belonged to Hyderabad but had visited Vijayawada for an event on June 10, dubbed 'Orange Day' and organised by the KTM bike company.
They are learnt to have performed the stunts while heading back from the event.
“A person took video of the dangerous stunts and posted it on some social media sites. Following a complaint, the Krishnalanka police have registered a case and arrested the racers,” South Zone ACP K. Srinivas told reporters.
In the video, several speeding bikes are seen, with none of the riders wearing helmets. One youngster riding solo lifts his bike to do a vertical wheelie at a high speed, even as three others riding triples on a bike next to him can be seen filming the dangerous stunt.
The Krishnalanka police said that as soon as they saw the video doing the rounds, they tracked CCTV footage, before approaching the organisers of the event and managed to trace the six youngsters.
The accused were booked under section 336 (Act endangering life or personal safety of others) of IPC and sections of the Motor Vehicles Act.
Presently, the Vijayawada City police is taking stringent measures to curb unlawful driving practices, with many awareness programmes being taken up to promote road safety.
According to Vijayawada police officials, as part of the special drives, the police have registered cases against 1,802 people for drunken driving in the last four months, out of which 91 persons were even sentenced to jail.