HYDERABAD: Dressed in black, around 6 feet tall, Mohammad Akram Azghar towers over most Metro commuters trying to jump queues at the Nagole Station on busy Sunday afternoon. In his stern yet polite tone, Akram tells the crowd to get in line, and they do. Akram is among the four bouncers hired by HMRL to manage crowd on weekends.
Until recently, bouncers were largely hired mostly by pubs to control unruly guests. However in January, reports of bouncers being used to intimidate taxi drivers protesting against cab-aggregators emerged. Last week, retrenched employees of Verizon claimed they were intimidated by also bouncers and “made” to resign. Clearly, the hiring of musclemen by companies has become the new trend.
HMRL has bouncers guarding three major stations. The need, officials say, arose after a security staff was manhandled by a few drunk men inside a station lift last week. Now, there are 4 bouncers at Nagole, 8 at Ameerpet and 8 at Miyapur.
“About 90 per cent of the time we do not have to resort to violence, but when it happens, we stay united,” says Akram, a 30-year-old graduate in commerce who once aspired to be a cop. He has been working as a bouncer for the past one year and gets paid `900 for 12 hours of work, two times a week at the Metro station. “Pubs pay `1,200 for the same duration,” he says.
Most bouncers are graduates who were interested in bodybuilding. They are usually hired based on their height, weight, biceps size and sometimes even skin colour. “Some demand bouncers who are fair and good looking. I was rejected once because I am dark,” says Ahmed Nazir.
Currently, the sector is largely unorganised. Opportunities come through WhatsApp or friend circles. “We get hired mostly through our networks at local gyms,” says Mohammad Haji. “We do not interact or know how others operate, but there are about eight teams of bouncers in the city,” says Haji who works at Nagole Station. HMRL, however, subcontracted the bouncers through an agency, TRIG guard force limited.
“The work is often backbreaking,” says Akram. “We are standing most of the time. We get like a half hour break during the 12-hour shift.”