Gurugram man exempt from paying toll assaults staff for being made to wait in queue

A man was arrested Thursday for allegedly vandalising 17 toll booths at Kherki Daula toll plaza in Gurugram district and assaulting staff after he was not given passage immediately.

The suspect, Hoshiyar Singh (46), a former chairman of Gurugram block committee, is exempt from paying the toll as he is a resident of Naurangpur village near the plaza.

Investigators said the incident took place at 10.40pm Wednesday,when Singh was to pass through the plaza to reach his village, and entered lane number 10 to find a pickup van ahead of him.

“A pickup van was ahead of Singh’s car. However, automatic deduction of toll could not take place because the van’s FASTag didn’t have money. So, the staff began to manually collect the money from the van driver,” said Inspector Rajender Singh, station house officer of Kherki Daula police station.

Allegedly losing his temper due to this delay, Singh took out a wooden bat from his car and started smashing the window panes of the toll booths at the plaza one after the other.

His activities were recorded by CCTV cameras in which he could be seen moving from one lane to another, signalling vehicles to either stop or pass through to make space for himself, and vandalising booths in the process, police said.

“Earlier also he was involved in similar incidents at the plaza,” said SHO Singh.

Jitender Singh, a senior staff person at the plaza, said Singh came out from his car and slapped a lane attendant, Vijender Singh, who was helping the commercial vehicle in paying the toll, multiple times.

“He then took out a wooden bat and...hit a toll collector, Rohit, who was sitting inside the booth, hard on the head,” he said.

“We called the police control room. An emergency response vehicle reached the spot and Singh was overpowered. Till then, he had already damaged 17 booths and injured half a dozen staff personnel,” said Jitender.

After Singh was questioned by police, he was granted bail.

On Jitender’s complaint, a named FIR was registered against the suspect under sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 427 (mischief causing damage to the amount of ₹50 or above) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code at Kherki Daula police station on Wednesday night.

Jitender said as many as 90,000 vehicles cross through the plaza every day resulting in toll collection of at least ₹60 lakh. “There are 31 villages around the plaza whose residents are exempted from paying the tax according to directions of the National Highways Authority of India,” he said.