Chennai: Uniformed officer assaults cab driver

Chennai: A 29-year-old cab driver was assaulted by a man, supposedly defence personnel near Anna University on Wednesday evening after the latter accused the driver of blocking his way. The assaulter was dressed in a ceremonial white uniform and was speaking in Hindi, according to the injured driver, J Anandan.

While the driver noticed the registration number of the vehicle (TN 10 X 3298) in which the officer came, he did not file a police complaint as yet.

“I was not sure if the police would take a complaint as the other person is a big shot,” the driver told DC. The passenger travelling in the cab, Seena Ravindran who witnessed the events took it to Facebook.

Anandan was taking the customer from Adyar towards Guindy when he made a slight right turn near IIT to get onto the flyover there. The officer was travelling in a sedan, a beige Skoda was honking continuously on the bridge.

As the vehicles got down the bridge, the officer drove his car parallel with the cab and asked the driver to stop the car. “The passenger told me to stop the vehicle as we noticed that he was dressed in a uniform,” Anandan said.

Recalling the sequence of events after both the vehicles pulled up, Seena said, “The man in uniform came out of his car, pulled my driver out and started hitting him brutally. By the time I sprang out of the car, the driver was already bleeding heavily and his shirt was almost torn.”  

When questioned about his behaviour, the officer reportedly told that he was on his way to a meeting and the cab driver was slow and refused to give him way.

The officer, according to Seena, also kept on reiterating that he was a North Indian in an assertive tone and sped away after a while. According to the registration details available, the car has been registered under the name of one Manish Bahl.