The woman’s Honda City (on the right) was seized by the Hyderabad Traffic Police for having a fake number plate as that of the original car.
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A string of traffic challans issued to the wrong sedan owner led Hyderabad police to discover a car owner who had allegedly been plying the vehicle with a fake registration number for nearly three years to evade enforcement.
The case surfaced after Mohd Qutubuddin Sanjary, a resident of Shahalibanda, complained that he had been receiving e-challans for traffic violations at Falaknuma and Narsingi, even though his black Honda City had not been at those locations. His car bears the registration number AP 09 BV 5544.
Traffic police first verified Sanjary’s vehicle details, including the registration certificate, engine number and chassis number, all of which matched the official records. With the genuine vehicle ruled out, investigators began tracing the car seen in the challan images.
Their probe led them to another black Honda City at Es using a similar vehicle displaying the same registration number. During the investigation into one of the Falaknuma violations, police identified a temporary driver who had been behind the wheel and obtained the apartment’s address.
When officers examined the car at the police station, they found that although it carried registration number AP 09 BV 5544 and its occupants produced a copy of the registration certificate bearing that number, the engine and chassis numbers did not match the official records. Further verification revealed that the vehicle’s original registration number was AP 31 BP 7979.
Police identified the occupants as B. Karuna, 35, a resident of Kokapet, and driver B. Naveen Kumar, 30. During questioning, Karuna allegedly confessed that she had deliberately replaced the original registration plate with AP 09 BV 5544 to avoid traffic challans.
According to investigators, the car had been driven with the fake registration plate since 2023. During that period, seven traffic challans were issued against the cloned registration number, with four of them having already been paid.
The car was seized and handed over to Malakpet police station. A case has been registered against the duo under Sections 318(4) and 319(2) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita and Section 158 read with Section 177 of the Motor Vehicles Act. Further investigation is underway.
Published – July 03, 2026 07:21 pm IST
