CHENNAI: Chennai police personnel were again caught having a brawl with a motorist in public view.
On Tuesday morning, a video clip showing a youth being held to a lamp post with three personnel surrounding and assaulting him in T Nagar went viral on social media. The motorist was identified as one M Prakash, 21, of Saligramam. His mother Sangeetha was seen crying and pleading with the police to let go her son. The incident occurred on Monday evening in a busy shopping area. However, city police subsequently released a CCTV footage showing the entire sequence of incident and claimed that it was Prakash who had “suddenly grabbed the sub-inspector by his shirt and punched him on the face.”
Police said sub-inspector Suresh had stopped Prakash since he was riding triples on the motorbike-with his mother and younger sister and was also not wearing a helmet.A police press release said the policeman only asked the motorist to pay the fine for the traffic violation to which Prakash reacted violently. However, one of the videos showed Prakash saying that he was ready to pay, but was only objecting to certain words used by another police officer. It was not clear from the videos what those words were. When Express visited Prakash’s house on Tuesday, the house was locked and the family members were not present.
The police alleged it was Prakash who picked a heated argument, assaulted Suresh and grabbed the police officer by his shirt collar. The CCTV footage released by police also shows one of the officers pushing down Prakash’s mother Sangeetha after which the youth reacts and is trying to assault a police officer. Another video showed a police officer hitting Prakash’s hand to make him leave Suresh’s shirt.
Prakash was arrested and remanded to judicial custody.On March 21, a similar incident was reported in which a traffic SI got into a fight with a motorist at Velachery. After the video of the incident went viral, police booked the motorist on charges of assaulting the police officer.
Who is right
A press release from the police said that the cops only asked the motorist to pay fine for riding triples and not wearing a helmet, to which he reacted violently. A video showed the man was ready to pay fine but objected to use of certain words by another policeman, which was unclear