Bhubaneswar: Two traffic constables at Nayapalli Sunday allegedly assaulted some members of a family after a heated argument.
The family, hailing from Begunia village in Khurda, has been residing at Unit 8 near DAV here.
They were going to attend a marriage function at Hirakud in Sambalpur district when the incident occurred.
According to sources, around 11 am Sunday, the constables deployed at Pal Heights square at Nayapalli stopped a Maruti Ertiga vehicle (AP 31 DW 7424) registered at Vishkhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh. The constables asked the owner of the vehicle to show his driving license along with RC, insurance, road tax, and pollution related documents of the vehicle which he did accordingly.
Later, the traffic constables questioned them whether they had city permit and also asked them to pay Rs 1000 as fine for fanciful number plate. The owner of the car, Chittu Patnaik, is a non-resident Odia who has been staying in Vishakhapatnam. His cousin, Lokanath Patnaik, came out of the vehicle to speak to the constables as Chittu was not well conversant in Odia.
Lokanath explained to the constables that fancy number plates were not banned in the neighbouring state where the car is registered. He also told the traffic police that they had paid toll tax while entering the city which is valid for 30 days while his brother had stayed only for two days. He also informed them that according to law they have to avail the city permit in case a traveler from another state stays longer than 30 days. However, the adamant constables did not pay any heed to his arguments and asked repeatedly to pay the fine. Later, when the constables found that Lokanath was not ready to pay Rs 1000, they demanded Rs.500 from him.
An irked Lokanath then took out his mobile phone and told the policemen that he was ready to pay the fine but he would shoot the proceedings on his mobile camera. One of the traffic constables snatched away the phone and put it in his pocket after deleting the recordings. They also allegedly took the mobile phones of the onlookers shooting the incident but later returned them.
However, they did not return Lokanath’s phone to him which led to an argument. Later, the constables allegedly assaulted him severely. They were later taken to the Nayapalli police station where the assistant commissioner of Police for traffic, Anup Kanungo, also allegedly misbehaved with Loaknath’s aunt, Bhagyalata Patanaik, who was travelling along with him.
DCP Anup Sahoo later said he had asked Kanungo to probe the allegations and assured befitting action against the traffic cops would be taken.
None of the traffic police present there were wearing cameras on their uniform.
Meanwhile, the video of the traffic constables beating Loknath mercilessly shot by some unknown onlooker has gone viral.
Systemic Harassment
The growing tendency of different state police forces to cross jurisdictional boundaries in order to arrest individuals for their opinions...
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