RAIPUR: A video has gone viral from Chhattisgarh’s Korba district showing Jyoti Mahant, a woman leader of the ruling party, publicly thrashing a tribal farmer outside the Bakimongara police station on Sunday.
According to eyewitnesses, Balwan Singh Kanwar, a farmer from Baredimuda village, was walking along the roadside with his cattle while speaking on his mobile phone. He abused someone on the call, which was overheard by BJP leader as she passed by in her car.
“Apparently, she felt the offensive utterances by the farmer, who was drunk, were intended for her. She reportedly got down from the car to react“, the Korba district police chief Siddharth Tewari told the TNIE.
The tribal farmer was initially beaten on the Ravanabhata Maidan road in Korba. Later, some youths brought him to the police station, where he was thrashed again near the premises of the thana.
A local Congress MLA from Rampur Phool Singh Rathiya has written to the Korba district police chief to register an FIR against the BJP leader for her alleged hooliganism.
“It’s wrong to claim that the police personnel did nothing to intervene. In fact the preventive action was carried out by the police to stop the woman. If we get any written complaint on the incident, the same will be examined to take appropriate action legally based on facts”, the SP said.
In the video, the BJP leader was heard shouting ruthlessly on the farmer who was publicly “assaulted”.