Bengaluru: In an incident that reeks of police highhandedness, a commuter in a car was allegedly thrashed by a driver of another sedan that had police stickers on it, in full public view on Museum Road on Tuesday morning. The victim, Joseph Rajan, who works as a sales manager at an MNC, posted his harrowing experience on Facebook soon after the incident and the city traffic police have taken cognisance of it.
Stating that he is a victim of misused power, Mr Rajan posted, “This morning around 9.25 when I was driving on Museum Road next to Good Shepherd Auditorium, a white Sedan tried to speed up and overtake me from the left. Since the road was chockablock with vehicles, I obviously couldn’t move my car to the right to give him space to overtake (and break the law!). As soon as the signal light went red, the person from the sedan started yelling and abusing me in Kannada. I tried explaining my situation to him, but in vain. He kept abusing me."
“When the signal turned green, I ignored him and started moving forward. Just before reaching the St. Joseph’s Boys’ High School main gate, he overtook me and forced me to stop my car. As he overtook me, I realised that it’s police vehicle, and had POLICE stickers on the front and rear of the car. The man was wearing a pale yellow safari suit and had a name badge. Even before I could read his name, he started banging on my car window. He kept reiterating, ‘How dare you talk to a policeman and teach him rules, when you are not even from Karnataka? You are an outsider’,” the post read.
“As he was not able to pull me out of my car, he started thrashing me from the window, tore my shirt and scratched my chest. I was angry and embarrassed. But I knew I couldn’t harm a man in uniform. I stood there like a mute spectator, while he kept thrashing me,” Mr Joseph posted.
“Within minutes, the public intervened and gathered around us. An auto driver and a few other people started questioning him. Seeing the crowd, he started intimidating the auto driver, and asked him to back out or else he would take his papers. But the auto driver wouldn’t budge. On seeing that the public support for me was gathering steam, he rushed to his car and sped away,” his post said.
“I was totally shaken. I was abused in public for no fault of mine. All this happened since I didn’t allow a man in a ‘police vehicle’ to overtake me from the left. I am not very certain if he holds any rank or is an officer. The car was a white Sedan with police sticker, and, the number plate read KA-53F-101,” added Mr Joseph in his post.
Records reveal that the SX4 VX sedan car belonged to the BMTC MD and was being used by the Director of Security & Vigilance, BMTC, Dr. B.A. Mahesh, and IPS officer. At the time of the incident, the director was not in the car.
“Yes, it is my vehicle. When I inquired him (driver) about the incident, he told me that the other fellow had touched his car’s rearview mirror twice in the traffic and there was an altercation in which he said something in Hindi and the driver replied. The whole thing lasted about 2 to 3 minutes and later he came to pick me up from my house around 9.55 a.m. I am trying to get in touch with the other guy who has posted the complaint and find the other side of the story,” Dr Mahesh told Deccan Chronicle.
Police car touched my mirror
“It was his car’s mirror that touched mine when he was trying to overtake me from the left. The driver in the pale yellow safari suit who waylaid my car was banging on my car window and then when I opened the door and got out of the car, he manhandled me and in the scuffle, my shirt tore,” said Joseph Rajan.
