Chennai: Actor Suriya, who got involved in a random incident of road rage, slapped a first division footballer in full public view. The actor may have believed he was playing the saviour of a woman who had got into an altercation with the footballer following a minor accident, on Monday evening.
In fact, the actor had misconstrued the wordy altercation between the woman driving a luxury car and the youth to an incident of manhandling of the woman.
The footballer U. Prem Kumar, preferred a complaint with Shastri Nagar police citing that the actor had slapped him in public without rhyme or reason.
Prem Kumar was riding pillion with I. Lenin Manuel, another soccer player, for a practice session at St. Patricks Colelge, Adyar from Broadway, when Lenin brushed against the car, which had made a sudden stop in the middle of the road.
“Prem Kumar was tossed from the vehicle and he landed on his back. Our two-wheeler front mudguard was damaged while the car had a dent in its rear bumper. The woman driver abused us for no fault of ours and we tried explaining to her it wa snot our fault. The other motorists intervened and questioned the woman’s driving skills. As talks on compensation were on, the actor, who was passing by the Adyar flyover and unaware of the ground situation, came into the crowd with his personal guards and repeatedly slapped Prem in full public view”, Lenin told DC.
When contacted, a senior police official confirmed that Suriya was convinced that the youth were harassing the woman driver. Based on a complaint from Prem Kumar, Shastri Nagar police are probing into the incident.
On his part, the actor said, “I was getting back home and I saw two local teens pulling an elderly lady who was alone...manhandling her. I said they can’t touch a lady like that and stopped them. And I made the police come to the spot.”
