BENGALURU: A 23-year-old was booked by police for his attempts to frighten women commuters on an escalator in a Metro station, and posting the video on his Instagram account. The accused, Prajwal, had also tried to shock commuters on a train from Vijayanagar Metro Station to Kempegowda Metro Station by pretending to have a health condition which made him almost collapse. He will be produced in court on Saturday for risking the safety of passengers.
Prajwal, a B.Com graduate, is a resident of Priyadarshini Layout in Moodalapalya in Bengaluru.
It was on Thursday that the Bangalore Metro Rail Corporation Limited (BMRCL) security team received an anonymous clipping of the stunt he did inside a train. A source said, “Though the prankster had uploaded the video on July 14 this year under the name of Prank Praju, we got to know about it just a day ago.
We immediately asked Govindaraj Nagar police to file a Non-Cognisable Report. We tracked his Instagram account and found another video of him trying to frighten women standing behind him on an escalator inside a Metro station. Attempting to scare women is just not acceptable, so we urged police to book him under stringent sections of the law. He was booked under Karnataka Police Act 1963 Sections 92 (O) and (R). We will produce him in the 2nd Metropolitan Magistrate court on Saturday.”
They deal with a person who wilfully and indecently exposes his person, uses indecent language or behaves indecently in public, and uses threatening or insulting words or posts to disturb peace.
On checking his other posts, the BMRCL security team found him indulging in numerous pranks using a bike (KA-02 JZ 8337). “We tracked the owner through a transport app and he confessed he had sold it to his friend, Prank Praju. We managed to get the address and mobile number from him,” the source explained.
On Friday, BMRCL asked him to report to the police station for further inquiry and then took him to Vijayanagar Metro Station.
A S Shankar, Executive Director, Operations and Maintenance, BMRCL, told TNIE, “We have imposed a penalty of Rs 500 on him at Vijayanagar Metro Station under Section 59 of Metro Railway (Operation & Maintenance) Act for committing nuisance and interfering with the comfort of passengers.”
Meanwhile, Raju, Prajwal’s friend, who recorded the prank videos for him, is not in Bengaluru and the police have summoned him.