Last month, I was a victim of corruption and police brutality in Chennai. On the 19th of July, when I was returning from a wedding reception of my close friend, who I look up to as an elder brother, an incident happened to me, which shocked everyone who knows me. I was stopped by some police officers on Spurtank Road, Chetpet, Chennai, as part of their routine checking.
When my licence and copy of RC book were checked, the sub-inspector demanded me to produce the original RC book, which I obviously did not have at the moment and only had a copy. The sub-inspector insisted producing the original copy, by which he was indirectly harassing me and compelling me to pay a bribe. I was firm that I will not pay a bribe since I was confident that I have all my documents. I told the sub-inspector M.H. Ilayaraja that it is very late for me and I need to get back home. I told him to take my scooter to the police station, on the condition that he gives me a receipt in reference to taking my scooter, and that I would come with the original documents in the morning and take back my scooter. This infuriated him and he starting whacking me with a beat stick (lathi) continuously.
I cried out in pain and fear to the five constables who were with him to stop him but they stood idle as mute spectators to this entire event. He finally stopped after I apologised to him around 10 times. On seeing that I was brutally injured, I was not allowed to make a phone call to my parents. I was then taken to the Chetpet police station where two other officers came up to me and started harassing me, accusing me of speaking rudely with the sub-inspector. By then it was way past midnight, and my father suspiciously came along with my uncle and my cousins to the police station and it was an embarrassing situation for the entire police station. I never saw sub-inspector Ilayarja after that.
I was admitted to the nearest Dr. Mehta’s hospital. The doctor told me to stay strong and informed me that this was the second incident of police brutality, in the recent days, and told me that the previous case was silenced and ended in a compromise. Several attempts were made to persuade us to compromise the case and not take it further. Simultaneously, the hospital management were being pressurised to discharge me from the hospital and my diagnosis reports were manipulated.
In the midst of all this confusion, I narrated this entire incident on my Facebook profile, sharing the photos of my injury, along with video evidence of the incident. The post went viral on social media after which representatives from media channels, social and political organisations visited me and extended their support. My post got more than 19,500 shares, more than 9000 likes, more than 1,900 comments and more that 7,57,000 video views. I also got several messages of people from across the country who faced similar incidents and could not do anything about it. Some of the messages made me have tears in the eyes.
Within three days, Dr. A.K Vishvanathan, the Commissioner of Chennai Police visited my residence and felicitated me for my act of good citizenship. He officially confirmed the suspension of the sub-inspector who perpetrated the brutal attack on me. He has also assured me that such acts of corruption and brutality will be dealt with very strictly to make sure that it will not happen again. This re-instated my faith in the system that the entire system is not corrupt, and that there are some very good, humble and honest people like the respectable Commissioner himself. However, I still believe that the majority of the system is corrupt, and that it will change only if the citizens and government officials work together to change it, and also if each person is accountable for his actions. If we all do this, we can achieve a society which is corruption-free, and is based on justice, equality and accountability of every citizen.