Unaware of child’s presence in car, police tow vehicle parked on footpath

Team Udayavani, Dec 25, 2020, 10:46 AM IST

Mangaluru: In a case of negligence, a car with a 7-year-old child seated inside was towed away by cops in Mangaluru’s Kadri area here on Thursday, December 24.

The boys mother Divya, a resident of Mijar had come to Mallikatte with her two sons. Her driver had apparently parked the car near a residential area, which Divya said was not marked as a ‘no-parking’ zone.

While Divya went to a shop with one of her sons, the driver and her other son were in the car itself. However, Divya had forgotten her phone in the car and the driver went to the shop to hand over the phone when the towing incident is said to have taken place.

Divya and the driver were shocked to find no sign of the boy or the car and began a frantic search for him. It was through a CCTV recording that they found that the police had towed the vehicle with the boy still inside.

Speaking to Udayavani, Divya said that following the Ujjire abduction she had told her boys to beware of strangers and hence the boy did not open the car door.

She further said that the police issued a challan to her but she refused to pay the fine.

As the police were criticized for the negligence, authorities clarified that as the car had tinted windows they were unaware of any occupant inside. “The car was parked on a footpath near Girias. Police towed the vehicle only after waiting for nearly 15 minutes for the owners to turn up,” they said.