A mob, draping itself in a different flag, beats up a policeman. Who, in the aftermath, says his own force, his colleagues, let him down; that nobody came to his help on time.
A senior officer refutes the charge. Reinforcements arrived at 9.50, he says, and not 10.10 as the victim said.
Ok, then. It is just a minor point that the call for help was sent at 8.30. If cops take an hour and twenty minutes to respond to a distress call from one of their own, what hope is there for the rest of us?
Sheikh said the attack began at 8.30 am on February 20, when over 100 youth assembled outside the police chowky, after he and Awaskar had stopped a group of 25 from hoisting the saffron flag the previous night. Police said the group belonged to the little-known Shivaji Jayanti Mandal. “I begged them to let me go but I was mercilessly beaten until I collapsed. The mob took me to the same spot where I had stopped them from hoisting the flag. They made me hoist the same flag there and forced me to chant ‘Jai Bhawani, Jai Shivaji’,” said Sheikh. “I was just doing my duty. Ambedkar Chowk is marked as a communally sensitive area. We even assured the group the previous night that we would find a better place for them to hoist the flag,” said Sheikh.
“I begged them to let me go but I was mercilessly beaten until I collapsed. The mob took me to the same spot where I had stopped them from hoisting the flag. They made me hoist the same flag there and forced me to chant ‘Jai Bhawani, Jai Shivaji’,” said Sheikh. “I was just doing my duty. Ambedkar Chowk is marked as a communally sensitive area. We even assured the group the previous night that we would find a better place for them to hoist the flag,” said Sheikh.
Ambedkar Chowk is marked as a communally sensitive area. We even assured the group the previous night that we would find a better place for them to hoist the flag,” said Sheikh.
Update: Scroll has the video.
