[rohansachar]

Originally Posted by sumeethaldankar

This happened today as i was driving to my office to Airoli for a night shift. I was on the santacruz kalina road onwards to the newly created santacruz chembur link road. This incident happened close to the signal where at right we can go to BKC and straight goes to SCLR.

I had slowed down for a signal and the area was a bit dark. Suddenly out of nowhere 2 guys approach my car from the left side and one of them for reasons absolutely unknown to me started to hit on the side of the car. Now i was driving carefully and i am quite certain the car did not touch anyone or anything that could have provoked them to behave that way.

Thankfully the signal turned green and the i started to drive away with the guy still beating on the side of the car. I have no clue what their intentions were and i did not wanted to find out either. I hope i did the right thing here by not lowering the glass and confronting the guys or stopped the car. Upon arrival at my office parking i checked if there was any damage to the car and there was none.I don't even know if i was the victim of road rage , had i unknowingly did something to provoke these guys o , only God will be able to tell.

Originally Posted by Gotham_City

Sumeet,

You did the absolutely right thing. A colleague faced exactly the same situation on the same road (CST Road, Kalina) 4 weeks ago.

It seems that there is a gang active in the area looking to make some easy money off unsuspecting motorists (either by flicking some expensive item or by extorting money in name of fake accident).

It's an emergence of very disturbing pattern in a city considered safe otherwise.

Thanks for sharing the incident.

Guys, this is a very common practice. It's happened 9~10 times to me. It's quite a funny story, near the Sion Station, where the road turns left toward Sion, back in 2010, I used to regularly drive by that way every evening. As you might know, it's jam packed traffic there every single day.

This SAME fellow was trying to pull the same trick on me for 9~10 times in a span of 2 months or so, wherein he would pretend I've hit him from the passenger side with the OVRM, start abusing like hell & demand me to open the window. For the first couple of times, I did not pay attention & drove away, but after 10 ATTEMPTS, I actually lost my calm one day.

In the same routine, I slightly opened the window & pretended to be scared[he didn't recognize me since I never reacted to him prior]. I put my phone & wallet in the glove box & locked it up. Parked the car at the side of the road & let's just put it this way, it wouldn't be wise to type out what happened for the next few minutes. But to give a sense, when I called the police later, they had to arrange an ambulance for him & I had to drive down to police station as well[Dharavi one]. BUT, the FORTUNATE thing that happened in my direction was that he had two previously robbed phones on him, which proved him guilty. The senior inspector advised me what I did could have taken a DRASTIC U-TURN if he couldn't have had been proved guilty & it would be a bad situation against me. But he was guilty as hell.

This was the "youth" days behavior . I'm a much calmer person now & choose to simply drive away from these situation. No points in getting your hands dirty.

I've always still helped out in situations like these. I had once noticed this same thing happening to someone at Oberoi Mall junction in Goregaon. I crossed the junction, parked my car & called the police. Van came along with 2 havaldars in civil clothes[I had explained them the situation].
We walked up to the junction, stood at a point for a few minutes pretending to have smoke & tea. But they didn't turn up again. Nevertheless, the police was very happy for my effort & encouraged me if I ever saw the same, to call them up again.

[1lokesh]

Originally Posted by sumeethaldankar

Buddy i hope your colleague too got away. I thank my stars the signal turned green otherwise i do not know what would have been in store for me. This happened around 9:30 PM in heavy traffic. I think this is the modus operandi of these gangs. Pick on a sole driver/vehicle , make them stop and then i don't know what next ..extort money from them or whatever. I would also urge people not to stop in case of such cases. I don't know if i should even continue to use that road again.

This is horrific Sumeet. Good to hear that no damage was done.

Green or not, Its always advisable to drive off (assuming that the signal point is not heavy on traffic). Next time, god forbid, do not wait for it to turn green please.

I happened to be in one such incident back in 2011 when I was in Gurgaon. I was alone and was going from my place (sohna road) to MG road at about 8PM. I took this route on sohna road - right turn from subhash chowk and straight to MG road. Now as soon as I took this right turn at subhash chowk, that stretch being dark and isolated, an M800 drives to my left and 2 guys lean out of its windows and start banging on left side of the boot screaming for me to stop. And mind you this is just 100 meters from the Sadar police station which is right there at the Subhash chowk turn. I smelled a rat and stepped on accelerator. Their M800 was no match to the Civic which I was driving, but they didn't relent. Chased me till next round about which was ~1km from the point where they started this whole act. I took a U-turn and as expected they did too. Now I was thinking and slowed down for them to catch up. As and when they closed in, I stepped up acceleration to keep a safe distance and eventually there was Sadar Police Station to my right across the lane divider. There used to be one small 'cut' to cross the road which I think policemen carved out for their own convenience. As soon as I turned into that median gap, the M800 guys turned the car in whatever speed they were in and sped away towards the wrong direction smelling what I was up to.

Me being me - went ahead into the police station and narrated the whole story to this constable sitting on his desk submerged in his files and papaers. He reluctantly tells me "there is nothing to worry now when you are here"!

I insisted on a filing a complaint but he flatly refused citing too little details as I wasn't able to note registration number etc. It was just a white M800 and "Katana" written in hindi on the rear windshield that I could figure out in this whole chaos. He told me that "Katana" is name of a village up sohna road and there are numerous cars with such stickers. I had to leave the police station disappointed and then this time I went back to Sohna Road all the way to Rajeev chowk to take NH8 for MG road. I still remember that I didn't venture out on that road for atleast couple of months. May be I was afraid that these guys would ambush me

And this was in Gurgaon and not in Mumbai. Being in Mumbai for last 6 months, I feel much safer than being in Gurgaon. Seriously.

But coming back to your post - be safe and please drive away even in red in case its possible rather than waiting.

Cheers!

[sumeethaldankar]

Originally Posted by 1lokesh

This is horrific Sumeet. Good to hear that no damage was done.

Green or not, Its always advisable to drive off (assuming that the signal point is not heavy on traffic). Next time, god forbid, do not wait for it to turn green please.
Cheers!

Lokesh buddy there was heavy traffic at the signal and in no chance i could have been able to go away if the light had not turned green. What is alarming to note is that criminals do such tactics in the presence of so many vehicles and people.Anyways i drove the same area tonite and kept a watchful eye for any morons trying to come up to my side. It's my regular route. I guess we all need to alert at all times.