Mumbai: The Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation’s ‘T’ Ward in Mulund has filed a complaint against a 38-year-old woman named Manali Yerzal, for allegedly assaulting a public servant and vandalising property in their control room.
The complainant is Tushar Narvekar (24), an operator at the Disaster Control Room in the ward, who mainly looks after complaints and grievances from citizens within their jurisdiction.
In his statement to the police, Narvekar said they receive various complaints from citizens, which are assigned to the engineers of the respective departments. On Friday afternoon, Narvekar received a phone call from a woman named Manali Yerzal regarding a water-related complaint outside her house. A complaint was registered under Yerzal’s name and was subsequently forwarded to a junior engineer named Bhagyashree Donge, Narvekar added.
The next day, Saturday, as Narvekar arrived at work, he received another call from Yerzal, who yelled at him and used abusive language for not taking action on her complaint. At around 10:25 a.m., Yerzal came to the ward office, entered their room while yelling at Narvekar and using profanities. According to Narvekar, when he attempted to explain that he had already forwarded her complaint to the concerned engineer, Yerzal ignored him, grabbed his collar, and physically assaulted him. When Narvekar tried to remove her hand, she took out her steel bottle and slammed it against the computer screens, telephones, CCTV cameras, and even a television set. In his statement, Narvekar reported that all the computer and television screens were damaged, and the telephones stopped responding to calls.
In light of the situation, Narvekar called the police emergency number 100, and a team of officers from Mulund promptly arrived at the ward office. They took Yerzal to the police station, while Narvekar provided his statement to the officers. Yerzal has been booked under Section 121 (voluntarily causing hurt or grievous hurt to deter a public servant from performing their duty), 132 (assault or criminal force to deter a public servant from discharging their duty), and 352 (intentional insult with intent to provoke a breach of peace) of the Bharatiya Nyay Sanhita. She was released by the police after being served a notice, as the punishments for the charges against her are less than seven years.
