Bengaluru is a city known for its busy streets and traffic gridlocks. In a recent incident, the city’s traffic police department acted quick and registered an FIR against a man who ‘performed dangerous stunts on Bengaluru’s Church Street with his modified Honda Civic and filmed the same for Instagram reels. The video was later shared online, attracting massive attention. The traffic police department soon noticed it, and registered an FIR against the offender.
In the video, we see the modified Honda Civic parked on a busy Church street, at night. The car has its headlamps turned on. Two-wheelers can be seen passing by, and several cars and SUVs are seen waiting behind the Honda. The car in this case, has scissor doors, which are seen open in the video.
The car has a loud exhaust and is being revved hard. Its exhaust sound is attracting a lot of attention and is possibly causing inconvenience to many. In another frame, we see a young man, likely to be the owner, standing near the car and vibing to the exhaust sound, unbothered by the people or traffic around, and carefree about the chaos he is creating. The entire act is being filmed and would later surface on social media as a flashy reel.
This incident is another chapter of a bigger, more worrying trend of creating video content for social media in public, in ways that would affect people or cause inconvenience. Such casses have lately been on the rise in Bengaluru, and the authorities are actively trying to curb the same.
The real problem here is not modifying the car, but using it in a way that disrupted public life and caused inconvenience to many. For the uninformed, Church Street is one of the busiest and most bustling areas in Bangalore. Located in the heart of the city, it witnesses its peak footfalls during the weekends and holidays. Even at night, the area is quite active. It is, in fact, a major nightlife hub, filled with pubs, bars, and restaurants.
This area is known for its tedious traffic and extreme parking challenges. Most of the time, one would fail miserably at finding a parking spot here. That doesn’t, however, stop people from visiting the place. Now, think of the inconvenience that this ‘content creator’ caused with his ‘bold filming act’. Even in the video, several vehicles can be seen affected by the same, waiting helplessly. The Church Street area is already a ‘noisy’ part of the city and the Civic’s loud exhaust would only make things worse. In every way, this act deserved strong legal action.
The video soon went viral. Many engaged with it, mostly expressing strong opinions against the a act. Big pages and profiles reposted it, and the clip soon reached the notice of Shanmukha N (PC-22318), a Traffic Police official who was on social media monitoring duty on January 20th. An Instagram account dhanveer_0555 (now made private) had the video live. The Civic, with registration plates reading ‘KA-01-MR-9585’ was clearly seen blocking traffic, in the middle of Church Street.
Soon, an FIR was registered at the Cubbon Park station, based on the complaint filed by Shanmukha. It accused the driver of obstructing traffic, creating inconvenience, and even endangering lives by driving recklessly. The police department has initiated appropriate legal action against the driver- he was issued a fine for the violation, and also given a stern warning to not repeat the offence again.
In a social media post that followed, the authorities reiterated that public roads cannot be used for social media stunts. Strict action will be taken against offenders. “Roads are for safety, not social media,” -said the department.