In an instance of extreme high-handedness by a public servant, a Tripura family had to pay a price for continuing with a wedding celebration during the night despite appropriate permissions already having been obtained.
Tripura West District Magistrate (DM), Dr Shailesh Kumar Yadav raided the wedding hall in state capital Agartala on Monday night and stopped the wedding party, abusing everyone present and threatening them with arrests.
In a video of the incident that has gone viral on social media, the DM is seen shoving the groom out of the hall. The police personnel, accompanying him, beat up people before driving them out. When a woman presented the DM with a copy of the permission letter obtained by the family from authorities, which he himself had allegedly signed, he tore it up and threw it at her face.
In the video, Yadav can be seen physically assaulting the bride and the groom. He misbehaved with the elderly people gathered at the venue, jostling them around and abusing them. Not sparing the police personnel in uniform, he even showered the choicest of abuses on them.
“I am bloody District Magistrate…SA*ale…This is my command…”, he said.
“Go out. Let’s go out,” Yadav shouted as he pushed the groom out of the hall. “Book them and take them to lockup,” he ordered the cops.
“All these people, who assembled, violated prohibitory orders under Section 144 of the Criminal Procedure Code (CrPC) and as such, they will be prosecuted under IPC Section 188 (disobedience to order duly promulgated by public servant). All of them will be arrested right now,” the high-handed bureaucrat proclaimed.
Altogether 31 people were taken into custody by the police. They were let off later.
During the raid, he had asked a police officer to count the number of people present at the wedding hall. When the cop said the officer-in-charge (OC) of the local police station was coming, the DM lost his cool.
“Count and tell me. This is my command as the DM. You all are hand in glove with these people,” he thundered.
“I will recommend to the government to suspend the OC of Agartala West Police Station because he has not acted upon repeated complaints of people. I, the DM, had to come here. This is very shameful on the part of the police,” Yadav said.
He further ordered the closure of the marriage hall as well as another for one year for “violating orders”.
Meanwhile, the bride’s brother Subhrajit Deb took to Facebook to condemn the District Magistrate’s highhandedness. Deb informed that the wedding was being carried out after attaining all due permissions from the District Magistrate’s office itself.
Sharing pictures of the documents where permission to carry out the ceremony was granted by the Tripura West DM’s office itself, Deb confirmed that Yadav’s office had, in fact, granted them 4 vehicle passes so that they could move around smoothly (if required) during the ceremony. He writes that all these documents were signed by the DM himself.
Deb furthered that keeping the COVID-19 protocol in mind, they had gathered not more than 25-30 close relatives for the wedding.
“Is it illegal to follow Hindu marriage act in my state? Should we not follow the auspicious time (logno)? If we are educated fools sir, then its also uneducated behavior using un parliamentary language infront of a crowd! Its also inhuman to arrest kids and women at 1 am and taking them to police station when kids of 9 yrs age are crying!”, Deb wrote.
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