Clip of inspector pouncing on cop surfaces

After a traffic constable was suspended for broadcastinghis grievances against an inspector for refusing to grant him leave to attend his mother’s last rites, avideo of the senior officer pushing the constable off his bike in the middle of the road and dragging him into a patrol vehicle has emerged. The incident took placea couple of hours after the constable made the complaint, said sources.

While the constable reportedly suffered a fracture in the attack, the inspector also tried to feed the constable with alcohol to prove that the latter was drunk at work.

The CCTV footage recoveredfrom KB Dasan Road shows that the incident happened at 11.45 am on Wednesday when the constable Dharmaraj (37) was on his way to submit his leave application.

The video shows the traffic inspector Ravichandran of Teynampet traffic police, against whom Dharmaraj complained over the walkie talkie, waiting with two other traffic police officers to nab him. As the constable arrives, one of the police personnel intercepts him in the middle of the road. Losing control of his vehicle, Dharmaraj goes skidding along with the bike in the impact.

Read More: Drunk traffic cop rants over walkie-talkie, suspended

As he stops just short of getting under the wheel of a mini truck, the inspector along with another officer rushed towards him and dragged him by the collar from the spot. He then pushed him into a patrolvan like a criminal.

“If the impact of the push had been a bit too hard, the constable would have surely crashed into the truck and lost his life,” said people, including the police personnel, who were presentat the spot.

While the allegation againstDharmaraj was that he spoke on the walkie talkie under the influence of alcohol, a few other traffic police personnel on condition of anonymity told DT Next that he was secured hurriedly by the inspector to feed him alcohol and establish that he had come drunk for work.

Incidentally, after nabbing and pushing him down, he was made to drink alcohol on the pretext of offering him medicine and was rushed to the Government Royapettah Hospital to obtain a certificate that he was drunk. After doctors reportedly refused to offer such a certificate, he was taken to Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital, where a similar refusal transpired.

Thereafter, Dharmaraj was taken to Kasturba Gandhi Hospital for Women and Children (Kosha), where the inspector on reportedly using his influence obtained a certificate that the constable was drunk. Interestingly, the certificate was offered nearly six hours after he was nabbed.

After the video of Ravichandran attacking Dharmaraj went viral, the former was moved to the ArmedReserve wing. However, the police personnel opined that merely transferring the inspector for the brutalact is insufficient.

They also wanted an inquiry to find why the inspector refused to allow the constable to go on leave despite adequate staff being available at the Teynampet police station and also about the underhand tactics deployed to wrongly establish that the constable was drunk.

Meanwhile, Dharmaraj’s wife Devi has lodged a complaint at the Abiramapuram police station demanding criminal action against traffic inspector Ravichandran as Dharmaraj has sustained a fracture on his left leg after being pushed off his bike.