Hyderabad: In the wake of ghastly accident at Nagarjuna circle on July 1 that claimed two lives and leaving others injured, police have taken stern measures to crack the whip on offenders.

Hyderabad police chief M Mahendar Reddy said that owners will be prosecuted if they sell liquor to underage people. The police have directed the excise department to tighten the noose of pubs and bars by installing CCTV cameras to keep a check that underage customers of below 21 years are not served liquor.

A case was booked against TGIF Bar situated at IMax in Banjara Hills for serving liquor to six engineering students who caused the deadly accident. The case is booked under section 36(1)(G) of Excise Act. A high-level meeting of excise officials was conducted which was presided by Shantha Kumar, principal secretary to chief minister.

Excise commissioner RV Chandravadan said, “The police department has written to us with regard to implementing rules in bars and pubs and we are taking steps to curb the rising menace.”

About 90 percent of bar and pubs have been fixed with CCTV cameras. Meanwhile, bar owners say that they welcome the move but preventing the underage people is a problem for them.

“We request the government to take steps to create awareness among people and provide more police security near bars,” said D Venkateswar Rao, president of Association of Pubs and Bar Owners. Meanwhile, the Hyderabad traffic police have found that in drunk and driving cases this year till Monday - 4,499 offenders have been booked out of which 5 percent of them are below 21 years.

As majority of the offence are done by the youngsters, to put a tab on them police has also decide to update the traffic rule enforcement software which allows them to know the details of the place from where liquor has been purchased.

“It is illegal to sell liquor to people below 21 years. So when we nab an offender, who is below 21 years, during the checks with the help of Aadhaar card or driving licence (DL) data, the software used by the enforcement officer prompts for details of the bar or liquor store, where the offender purchased alcohol. Once the data is captured, we will write to the excise department to cancel the licence of erring shop,” said AV Ranganath, DCP (Traffic).

Meanwhile, if a student is an offender the management will be informed and same is applicable for government and private employees.

“If a government employee spends more than 48 hours in jail, he or she automatically gets suspended. However, we have learnt that employees, who receive imprisonment, seldom inform about it to their offices. Now, we will send the imprisonment information to employers,” the DCP added.