A video of a Sub Inspector intercepting a boy on a cycle and briefly ‘seizing’ the cycle in Eriyur here in Pennagaram had gone viral, kicking up a storm. However, the SI defended his action and said the boy was riding with his hands off the handlebars.
The video shot from the terrace of a building shows S. Subramani, the SI of Eriyur police station, stop the boy on the cycle and ask him if he always rode the cycle hands-free. He is then seen locking the cycle and taking it to the side of the road.
A young two-wheeler rider without a helmet is seen whizzing past the police just before this incident. He is seen holding the accelerator in one hand and the helmet propped up on his lap in the other.
Mr. Subramani, said: “This happened on Monday evening and let me explain. We cannot catch all the vehicles, we catch few and some vehicles drive past... So, in this case, I saw the boy riding hands-free, and closely behind the two-wheeler rider. If I intercepted the two-wheeler, there was a chance that the two-wheeler rider would have tried to take a U-turn to escape and the boy on the cycle would have got knocked down.”
In the midst of the outrage, police countered rumours of the “detention of the boy” with a video statement from the boy and his grandmother. The boy is seen explaining that he had taken his hands off to fix his shirt button and his grandmother is heard admonishing him.
Mr. Subramani said, “In the video, the boy’s shirt buttons are still open and he wasn’t fixing them, but showing off on the cycle, which was clearly risky behaviour.” The boy was sent off with some advice and a pat on the back in 10 minutes, with his cycle, said a woman witness.
