SRINAGAR: Traffic violations, or the registering of cases pertaining to traffic violations, have seen a huge dip in the months of lockdown in Kashmir following abrogation of J&K’s special status on August 5.
Data provided by the Traffic department reveals that the months of August and September have seen a decline of nearly 87 percent in traffic challans, against a monthly average of more than 25000 cases till July.
In July, the Traffic police/department had registered a total of 27,601 challans across Kashmir valley. These included 2,153 court challans and 7,982 compound challans filed in Srinagar city, and 2,754 court challans and 14,712 compound challans in rural Kashmir.
However, during August, which saw curbs on communications and movement begin on 5th day, a total of 3,321 challans were filed by the department across the Kashmir valley. These include 67 court challans and 761 compound challans in Srinagar city and 419 court challans and 2,074 compound challans in rural Kashmir.
The trend continued in September, during which 3394 challans were registered across Kashmir, including 207 court challans and 1032 compound challans in Srinagar city and 1061 court challans and 1094 compound challans in rural Kashmir.
Data from previous months in the year throws up a monthly average of more than 25000 cases per months, or more than 800 cases per day.
A total of 181,842 challans for traffic violators across have been filed by traffic police from January to September this year. Of these more than 1.75 lakh were registered upto before August (January to July).
Apart form the 27,601 cases registered for traffic violations in July, 24,971 cases were registered in June, 27,817 in May, 25,634 in April, 28,991 in March, 17,326 in February and 22,787 in January.
The Traffic police files cases for various traffic violations including lack of required documents like registration certificate, driving license, number plate, pollution check, insurance, and for violations like riding two wheeler without helmet, driving car without seat belt, drunk driving, wrong parking, et al.

ARIF RASHID