Rad­hi­ca Sookraj

An Amer­i­can cit­i­zen and a pris­ons of­fi­cer were among 40 peo­ple charged with drunk­en dri­ving over the week­end. The ex­er­cis­es, head­ed by Supt Franklin Sam­path, ASP Zamsheed Mo­hammed and Sgt Vi­jai Ramd­hanie, took place through­out the South­ern and South West­ern Di­vi­sions. A to­tal of six ex­er­cis­es were car­ried out be­tween 7 pm on Sat­ur­day and 6 am yes­ter­day at Pe­nal, Bar­rack­pore, San Fer­nan­do, Fyz­abad and Gol­con­da. Po­lice said they re­spond­ed to a re­port of a mi­nor road traf­fic ac­ci­dent on Cof­fee Street, San Fer­nan­do. Po­lice al­leged that while they were in the process of in­ter­view­ing wit­ness­es, they saw the 41-year-old pris­ons of­fi­cer, of St Au­gus­tine, stag­ger­ing.

They said the of­fi­cer was un­able to stand prop­er­ly. He was tak­en to the San Fer­nan­do Po­lice Sta­tion where he was charged with dri­ving un­der the in­flu­ence of al­co­hol. Mean­while, around 11.30 pm, of­fi­cers led by Sgt Ramd­hanie, said they were on du­ty at Mon Re­pos, when they ob­served the Amer­i­can cit­i­zen swerv­ing his car from side to side. The 32-year-old man of Louisiana, USA, who is cur­rent­ly stay­ing at a ho­tel in San Fer­nan­do, was tak­en to the po­lice sta­tion where he al­so un­der­went the breathal­yser test. He too was charged with drunk­en dri­ving.

Mean­while, ten oth­ers from Bar­rack­pore, Pic­ton, Gol­con­da and Debe were charged with sim­i­lar of­fences. In the South West­ern Di­vi­sion, a to­tal of 28 peo­ple were charged with the same of­fence. All 40 peo­ple are ex­pect­ed to ap­pear in court to­day.