Cops film taxi touts at Kolkata airport to stop fleecing of passengers

Kolkata: Police have resorted to videographing taxi touts at the Kolkata airport in an attempt to stop the racketeers from fleecing passengers.
TOI had on October 2 reported how taxi touts had returned to airport, now that there’s a rush of passengers ahead of the festive season. Now that train operations are yet to normalize, many first-time flyers are using the airways to commute; they are not quite aware of the availability of transport—pre-paid taxis, app cabs and buses—from the airport.The touts have mostly been targeting them, waylaying them at the exit doors and offering them taxi rides at double-triple the normal rates. But with registered complaints being few and far between, cops have been finding it hard to produce evidence in court, as a result of which, the touts have been let off scot-free. So now, police have decided to film the unscrupulous operators.
Cops claimed the initiative would serve three purposes: gather first-hand evidence of touts in action admissible in court; act as a deterrent to scare them away and boost confidence among passengers. Airport officials lauded the effort but said caution should be maintained so that no photograph of vital installations be taken and the cops should ensure that that images should never be made public. TOI was at the airport on Friday when officers of the Airport traffic guard, armed with a digital camcorder, started recording touts as they approached passengers coming out of the airport and the result was instantaneous: the operators disappeared from the terminal within minutes.
Police pointed out that they had tried a variety of ways—increasing police presence to raising the number of pre-paid taxi kiosks and even booking touts for extortion—but so far had been able to do little to prevent them from fleecing passengers at the airport. In the past, cops said, they had arrested a number of touts but they were let off in want of evidence as neither passengers nor airport authorities turned up in court to identify them. TOI had reported on February 19 this year how a Barrackpore court had permitted a police plea for test identification parade of a group of touts at a Dum Dum jail but airport officials missed three dates and the touts were finally released on bail.
“We have started to videograph the illegal car operators now. Under Section 65B of the Indian Evidence Act, if digital evidence is provided following the set procedures, it is admissible by the court of law and doesn’t require any corroborative evidence,” said Dhritiman Sarkar, deputy commissioner (traffic) of Bidhannagar City Police. He added the footage would be stored in their database for a significant period of time to ensure it was available for production any time cops needed to bolster their cases. “Apart from serving as evidence, seeing men in uniform videograph them from a close distance will act as a deterrent for touts and is bound to make passengers more confident. It will prevent them from falling prey to the miscreants,” Sarkar said.
“This is a novel initiative and if it works out, cops should continue. Touts have been one of the most plaguing problems at this airport. But as I reached Kolkata on Thursday, none bothered me,” said Jayanta Goswami, a frequent flyer between Kolkata and Guwahati.