The top officials in the police department have been trying hard for years to make the force people-friendly but they still have a very long way to go.

At 7 pm on February 4, at the checkpoint near Thillai Ganga Nagar subway, sub-inspector N. Selvaraj of Pazhavanthangal police station stopped a journalist who was going to office.

Irked over the scribe stopping the vehicle on the right side of the road, the SI spoke rudely to the journalist and asked him to produce some documents. The abusing continued long after the scrutiny of the accreditation card and driving licence.

Not content, Selvaraj, who was yelling at the top of his voice, waved his torch and threatened to hit the scribe if he did not stop questioning him for showering abuses.

The journalist insisted that the police official stop hurling abuses, bu the unfazed SI continued doing so and instructed his subordinates — a constable in uniform and a policeman in plainclothes — who were standing nearby to take away the scribe.

Moments later, Selvaraj pushed the journalist away with his torch and continued abusing him, not caring that several passersby were watching.

When the journalist took up the matter with the SI’s seniors, all that they did was to ask the errant policeman to leave the scene. Ironically, the same SI was abusing motorcyclists at the same spot the next day.

Even a couple of intelligence section officers who had assured action did not respond the following day.