Kathmandu, November 30

A car driver ended up in jail after he attempted to bribe an on-duty traffic policeman at Tribhuvan International Airport for offence under the Motor Vehicle and Traffic Transport Management Act.

Parshuram Rai of Morang has been charged with offering Rs 1,000 bribe to the policeman to not take action against him for violating traffic rules. Similarly, Dilip Kumar Rijal of Nuwakot, a cabbie, was arrested for trying to bribe a traffic policeman. He had offered the on-duty official a Rs 900 bribe. But instead of getting the traffic police official’s favour, he was arrested.

Traffic police, who are critical of people bargaining over bribe money on the road, have launched action against traffic rule violators who try to bribe on-duty officials to avoid action.

DIG Sarbendra Khanal, in-charge at Metropolitan Traffic Police Division, said the drive against the practice of trying to bribe traffic police was launched on Tuesday.

Seven persons, mostly cabbies and bus drivers, have been arrested for trying to bribe traffic police personnel to be let off the hook. “We started action against such motorists after they did not heed our warning not to take undue favour from on-duty officials,” he said.

“This crackdown aims to ensure strict adherence to traffic rules and discourage drivers and on-duty police officers from offering and receiving bribe. We expect traffic police to always work strictly within laws while dealing with offenders,” DIG Khanal said.

Traffic police personnel have been authorised to arrest and send such offenders to custody for necessary action. Common forms of traffic rule violations are disregard for lane discipline and traffic signals, use of mobile phone while driving, parking vehicles in the no-parking zone, seat belt infraction, mechanical modification of bikes, overloading vehicles, overtaking from the left side of the road and violation of one-way traffic rule, among others. Violation of lane discipline tops the chart of offences and bikers are mostly ignorant about traffic rules.