In a move that sends a strong message, a magistrate court in Hyderabad on Thursday sent 10 parents to prison for one day, for letting their minor children drive.
In what was reported to be a first, a 14-year-old was also sentenced to remand for one day in a juvenile home.
A penalty of Rs 500 was also slapped on the parents, under Section 180 of the Motor Vehicle Act.
According to reports, in February itself, 45 parents were jailed and 1,079 cases were registered as part of traffic police’s campaign to curb driving by minors.
“If police book ten more such cases continuously, and if the court jails all of them, then we will surely see a change in parents as well as in the minors,” Vinod Kumar Kanumala, a road safety expert, was quoted as saying.
The Hyderabad police began a campaign to curb underage driving in the last week of February.
Following this, 191 cases were booked against minors in a single day, while four parents were also sentenced to prison at the time.
The drives are being conducted in Hyderabad's old city area, and especially near colleges.
While launching the campaign last month, Hyderabad Traffic Joint Commissioner of Police Dr V. Ravinder told ANI, "We are launching special drives in a number of places in the city to curb minor driving. Nobody is supposed to drive the vehicle without driving license. The cases are not only filed against the minor drivers but also against the owners of the vehicles and also parents. Parents of the minors are also liable, nobody should give the vehicles to persons and minors who are not having licenses."
The campaign to curb underage driving, follows close on the heels of another campaign to curb drunken driving in the city.
Statistics released by the Hyderabad Traffic Police stated that 20,411 cases of drunk driving were booked in 2017, out of which 4,015 violators faced imprisonment.
The police also said that they collected Rs 2.2 crore in fines for drunken driving.