Chennai: A day after the staff of a restaurant on Hanumantha road in T. Nagar manhandled a teenage hawker; the police arrested two persons involved in the act.
The arrest comes following a photograph carried in Deccan Chronicle, which caught the inhuman act. The police identified the duo as Premkumar (32) and Suraj Kumar (30), working as valets in Hotel Sri Devi Park, which houses Barbeque Nation restaurant. On Saturday morning, police personnel had conducted enquiries with the vendors near Somasundaram ground after DC carried the photograph.
Eyewitnesses to the incident said the staff pushed the girl and even tore all the colouring books she had for sale. The girl’s brothers who were found near Somasundaram ground on Saturday selling stickers, claimed that they study in a school and sell items after school hours and during weekends.
They said the girl was also subjected to disciplining by her mother for the ‘loss’ as the staff tore the books that were for sale. Only an old woman and a youth who work in a roadside eatery nearby came to the rescue of the girl on Friday as the public chose to play spectator, according to a vendor opposite the restaurant.
When approached, a representative of the restaurant defended the valets’ act unapologetically, saying that they did that only after repeated complaints from their guests. “One of the boys hurled a stone at the valets after which they resorted to the act,” he said.
The Pondy Bazaar police registered a case and remanded them in custody.
