Tags:
Journalism of Courage
PUNE, Feb 18: It was a scene straight from a Bollywood potboiler. Three men walk into a jeweller’s shop and pick a bag containing money and try to give the crowd the slip. Only in this case, the men turned out to be employees of the octroi department of the Pune Municipal Corporation (PMC).
Trouble erupted on Centre Street in Pune Cantonment this evening when the trio allegedly picked up a bag containing Rs 40,000 from the Bagaji Devaji and Sons and began running on the streets. An irate crowd chased them and finally caught them. They were severely beaten up. However, the men turned the tables on the crowd when they claimed that they were employees of the PMC’s octroi department and demanded an apology. The angry jewellers immediately closed their shutters to protest against the “attitude of the octoi department.”
High drama ensued at the Centre Street police chowkey following which additional municipal commissioner Deepak Kapoor and elected members of the Pune Cantonment Board (PCB) Vinod Sanghvi and Gautam Mahajan had to intervene to bring about the compromise between the two parties.
Members of the Pune Jewellers’ Camp Association which has around 86 jewellers complained about the high-handed attitude adopted by the employees.
“We have no complaints on the issue of paying octroi. But this is not the manner in which things are conducted,” one of the them said. Yet another jeweller complained that the none of the employees showed their credentials at the shop and identified themselves. “Why did they pick the bag and runaway. They could have demanded octroi instead of running away,” another jeweller asked.
The matter, however, was resolved when the two parties reached a compromise.
