Seized cars parked outside police stations for months started to move on Monday.
The move came days after mayor Firhad Hakim wrote to Calcutta’s police commissioner Vineet Goyal requesting him to direct all police stations to remove the cars in a bid to control breeding of mosquitoes.
This was the mayor’s second letter in seven months to the top cop with the same request.
Officers said several cars have been shifted from outside police stations where they had been gathering dust and accumulating rainwater for months.
Metro reported on June 29 about three police stations — Ballygunge, Bhowanipore and Topsia — where seized cars that have not been claimed for long were found dumped outside. There would actually be many more like that across the city.
On Sunday, this newspaper found such vehicles outside Ballygunge, Entally and Jorabagan police stations.
On Monday, the scenes started to change.
Vehicles outside Entally police station were removed on Monday, an officer said.
“A few are still there. We have started contacting the owners and asking them to take their cars.”
An officer at Jorabagan police station said the cars in front of the premises were seized a few days ago. “We have to wait for the owners to come and claim their cars before deciding to shift them to places designated for such vehicles,” the officer said.
As for one particular car, the officer said: “We did not seize the car. On enquiring, we found that someone had left it there. We have traced the owner.... We will ask him to take away the vehicle. If he doesn’t, we will shift it to the dumping ground....”
The officer said they had got instructions from the Calcutta police headquarters to remove the seized vehicles.
Most of the police stations keep seized vehicles outside their premises till they are claimed by their owners. Many of them are dented or damaged and provide ample space for accumulation of water, where the Aedes aegypti mosquito — the transmitter of the dengue virus — can lay eggs.