Newspaper staff roughed up for ‘overtaking’ SUV in Bihar

In a grim reminder of the > Gaya road rage incident , a newspaper employee was forced into an SUV and brutally beaten up here late on Friday night for ‘overtaking’ a car allegedly driven by men under the influence of alcohol.

Police said they have recovered the vehicle and identified the culprits.

The incident took place when Rakesh Singh, production manager with the local edition of an English newspaper, was returning to his office from the printing press in a jeep along with a colleague, Subodh Kumar.

“When our vehicle overtook and mildly hit an SUV coming from the wrong direction, the men in the car came out and beat us up. They then pulled me into their vehicle and started off,” Mr. Singh said, adding that the attackers drove the vehicle across the city for about two hours while the journalist was roughed up.

Mr. Singh said the men abandoned the vehicle with him still inside after it developed some snag near the Patna railway station before escaping. The attackers also took his money and ATM card, said Mr. Singh, who was later hospitalised. “They threatened to shoot me if I raised an alarm. All of them were inebriated,” he claimed.

Mr. Singh, along with his colleagues, lodged a complaint with the Shastrinagar Police.

Police inaction “Though we requested the police official on duty to file an FIR and relay the message to other policemen immediately to nab the accused since they might have been still at large, the policeman asked me to come the next morning”, Mr. Singh said.

Taking note of the accusation, Patna Senior Superintendent of Police, Manu Maharaj, on Saturday suspended Shastrinagar police official Teni Paswan and issued a show-cause notice to the officer in-charge.