A couple in Bengaluru, Karnataka, claimed that police harassed them on Thursday night and demanded that they pay Rs 1,000 through the payment app PayTm for allegedly breaking the law by walking on the street in front of their home after 11 p.m., which was against the law.
The couple was returning to their home after cutting a birthday cake. A constable and a head constable from Sampigehalli police station have been suspended as a result of a police investigation.
A man by the name of Karthik Patri described his experience in a Twitter thread and asked the Bengaluru City Commissioner of Police for assistance.
"I would like to share a traumatic incident my wife and I encountered the night before. It was around 12:30 a.m. My wife and I were walking back home after attending a friend's cake-cutting ceremony (We live in a society behind Manyata Tech park)," Patri tweeted.
He claimed that when a patrol van stopped close to them and two guys in uniform asked that they display their ID cards, they were just a few meters from their entrance gate. "We were taken aback. Why should an adult couple walking on the street on a normal day be asked to show their ID cards?" he said.
The couple showed their Aadhaar cards to the police, who then took their phones away.
The police, however, took note of the request that also appealed for anyone who had experienced something similar to contact them.
In his response to the Twitter thread, Anoop A. Shetty, Deputy Commissioner of Police, North East Division, Bengaluru City, thanked Patri for bringing it to their attention and promised him stern action.
Two policemen suspended
Bangalore Police later informed on Twitter that two police personnel from Sampigehalli Police Station were suspended and departmental action has begun against them.
