A 22-year-old youth, who failed a breathalyzer test at Kolkata, fled with the device and managed to sleep peacefully at home for a few hours before the law caught up with him.
He is now behind bars... though it's certainly not the kind of bar he would have perhaps liked to be behind.
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According to police, Around 10.25 pm on Tuesday, Vedant Agarwal, a resident of Girish Park in north Kolkata, was stopped by a team of officers from the Nabadiganta traffic guard at a police check-post at SDF crossing near Nicco Park. Vedant was driving his father's car, a Hyundai Eon.
"The youth looked intoxicated and was driving at high speed. We asked him to take the breathalyzer test. He was unwilling, but we forced him to exhale through the breathalyzer," said an officer of the traffic guard.
Vedant was sitting inside the car with the engine switched on as a constable held the breathalyzer at his mouth. As the device showed a reading beyond the permissible limit of 0.03%, the constable reportedly turned towards a senior officer to inform him that Vedant had tested positive, when he stepped on the accelerator and sped away , the device clutched between his teeth, said a cop.
The constable who was administering the test ran behind the car as it sped towards Chingrihata, but in vain. Vedant managed to drive 10km -first with the breathalyzer in his mouth, and later on the car floor -to his home. He parked the car and promptly went off to sleep in his room.
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He, however, did not have a good night's sleep. The cops, who had noted the car's registration number, knocked on his door a few hours later and arrested him.
"We had the registration number, and it was easy to track down the owner's address. When we raided his house, we found the car parked outside and the youth asleep in his room. We arrested him and recovered the breathalyzer from the car," said an officer of the Electronic Complex police station.
Along with drink driving, Vedant has been charged with snatching police property. He was produced in court, which sent him to three days' police custody . He is currently cooling his heels at the Electronic Complex police station in Sector V.
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Cops booked Vedant separately under Section 392 IPC (snatching and robbery) and Section 185 of the Motor Vehicles Act (drink driving). If found guilty , the IPC section can get him imprisoned for a maximum of 10 years.
If convicted for drink driving, he could be imprisoned for up to six months or asked to pay a fine of Rs 2,000. Second and subsequent offences can lead to imprisonment for two years or a fine of Rs 3,000.