On the busy ORR, scores of commuters routinely fall victim to the ‘nail mafia’. But one man has begun a silent resistance, by combing the stretch on his own regularlyScores of techies and other commuters are routinely falling victim to what is being spoken of in hushed tones as a ‘nail mafia’ operating in the city's tech corridor between Central Silk Board and Marathalli. It has become a regular sight in this stretch to see them push their punctured two-wheelers to the nearest repair shop, while others driving cars put on the hazard lights to huff and puff while having a stab at replacing the deflated tyre with the spare wheel.Since the victims are techies, who are by habit meticulous about data capture, we might as well have anticipated this. It seems a techie who has spent months surviving multiple instances of flat tyres on this stretch maintained a diary of his travails. Aptly known as ‘Nail Chronicles’, his diary speaks of his initial struggles with the contrived accidents, and his eventual kick-off of a campaign to clean up the road himself — a Gandhigiri of sorts to make a larger point.He is now the (unfortunately not the ‘proud’ sort) owner of 1.5 kg of similar-looking nails which he hopes to present to the police as proof to nail the, well, nail mafia. Till date, he has combed the 6 km Outer Ring Road (ORR) stretch four times!Meet Benedict Jebakumar, a systems engineer at a tech company on ORR, the most unlikely of heroes. His de-nailing operations on the ORR trace their origins to the first week of July when he had a puncture while travelling from Banashankari to Bellandur. “Initially, I thought that my tyres were deflating as I was travelling on the edge of the road and avoiding flyovers. Hence, I decided to take the flyovers. But there was no respite as even on flyovers the tyres were getting deflated. I was surprised to know that all the nails were of the same type and were found at designated places which were incidentally near puncture repair shops. This was when I started petitioning cops (on their online sites). Each time, I would get the same message that the issue will be taken care of. But, the nails never ceased to stop and every morning I ended up finding newer nails,” he explained.This was when he decided to take up a special mission to comb the ORR for nails. It was nearly a Herculean task to comb the stretch between Central Silk Board and Bellandur. His ‘Nail Chronicles’, a diary which he maintains, has this entry for July 23, “Today, I spent around 30 minutes in the morning combing for nails on Agara Flyover on my way to office. I very frequently see the same type of nails in clusters between RMZ Ecospace and Silk Board. And even sometimes at BTM. I wish those responsible take necessary action to permanently stop this by arresting the miscreants and deploying systems to detect and remove such shrapnel from the roads.”When Jebakumar went back home with the collected nails, his 10-year-old son asked him as to how he had picked up the nails. When he told him it was with his bare hands, his son asked why he didn’t use the magnet from his study material for the combing duty. “The next day, I used my son’s magnet to collect some more nails from the same bridge (Agara flyover),” he said. The Nail Chronicles had this to say on August 1, “I got a fresh set of nails from Agara Flyover. I am worried about next week since I will be using my two-wheeler to commute and I can't see these nails to avoid them. Save me from getting a flat tyre.”By then, Jebakumar had realised that the magnet was not big enough. The small magnet which he was using could hold only up to 15 nails at a time. So he went for a bigger magnet that could hold up to 50 nails. After his operation on August 12, he wrote, “Worse Day...ugly scene on the way to office in the morning. I found many nails spread on the road stretch opposite to Agara Lake.” But Jebakumar soon realised that even this magnet was not powerful enough. So, he decided to go to a scrap merchant to buy an even more powerful magnet and continued with his combing operations. On August 22, his diary entry read, “I have had enough of squatting on the road to collect these nails. My thighs are really paining. ‘Flat tyre’ on a Friday evening! When it is a flat tyre, the job becomes more difficult as it is not merely about pushing the deflated tyre as a hard push can cause the rim of the wheel to ride on the tyre tread or the ground, damaging the tyre.”Jebakumar keeps the 1.5 kg of nails in his office. “It looks foolish but I am segregating the nails as if they are exhibits by sorting them according to the dates they were retrieved. I hope that one day cops will consider my proof as substantial and take necessary action. Many may laugh at me, but only those who experience the hell of pushing the bike after a puncture would realise the gravity of the situation. I am committed to continue my mission of cleaning up the road often and am now expecting to have a team that will take care of the combing operations until the authorities wake up. This is our Gandhigiri to fight against the nail mafia,” added Jebakumar as this correspondent gave him company on one of his combing operations. It was sickening to see how fresh nails turned up on the roads every day.Talks about a nail mafia have lots of takers among commuters on the ORR. Some of those who have been laid low by repeated punctures opened up to Bangalore Mirror. “I have had five punctures in two months. Three of the punctures forced me to replace my tube as well. All the punctures occurred between the Sarjapur Junction flyover and the HSR Layout flyover. I was surprised to see that there were five others who also faced the same problem. Strange that all of us had the same type of nails in our tubes. During my last puncture incident, I met a guy who told me that he had replaced four tubes during the last three months. This is an organised crime,” said a commuter. Another biker said, “Every time, there is a puncture, we are asked to replace the tube and charged anywhere between Rs 600-650, though a branded tube costs only Rs 350.The repair shop people take advantage as people have no option but to pay up at midnight.” Another biker narrated a bizarre incident, “Once when coming from HSR Layout, I slowed at a speed bump ahead of Central Silk Board and saw two guys cruise in front of us in a Yamaha and drop nails. They rushed from there towards Silk Board, while the two-wheelers and four-wheelers which trod over the nails got punctured. We could not even chase those guys due to the punctures.”