Harbhajan’s Hummer gets traffic ticket in Chandigarh

CHANDIGARH - Cricketer Harbhajan Singh’s Rs.10 million Hummer SUV has just got costlier. No sooner than the off-spinner in his SUV hit the Chandigarh roads, the traffic police slapped him with a penalty of Rs.3,000 for traffic rule violations.

The Chandigarh traffic police Tuesday handed over to Singh - popularly called ‘Bhajji’ - a ‘challan’ or payment slip for a Rs.3,000 fine for driving the vehicle without a registration number.

Bhajji had driven the vehicle on city roads Monday. He is here to play matches for the BCCI’s Corporate Club at the Punjab Cricket Association (PCA) stadium at Mohali, 10 km from here.

Singh is staying at the Taj Hotel here with Indian cricket team captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni. He Monday showed his new vehicle to Dhoni, who also recently acquired a similar Hummer from Britain.

Superintendent of Police (traffic) H.S. Doon told IANS: “We got this complaint against Harbhajan Singh yesterday (Monday) that he was driving a Hummer without any number plate in Chandigarh. The law is same for anyone and it does not permit us to ignore any celebrity or a cricketer.”

“Therefore, after thorough investigation, our officials went to Taj hotel, where he is staying and handed over a challan slip of Rs.3,000 to him. The challan was received by a representative of Harbhajan. Now, he has a time limit of 15 days to pay it and after that we would send it to the court,” added Doon.

Singh’s friend had driven the Hummer from Jalandhar city in Punjab, 150 km from here, to the Chandigarh airport as the spinner flew into the city Monday.

Thereafter, Harbhajan drove it to Taj hotel and later to various places in Chandigarh.