City cops suspended over extortion claim, probe underway

The husband Karthik had taken to Twitter and written a long thread narrating how two cops in a Hoysala van allegedly stopped them around 12.30 am

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: Two police personnel were suspended and are being investigated for allegedly harassing and extorting money from a couple near Manyata Tech Park in the wee hours of Friday.

The husband Karthik had taken to Twitter and written a long thread narrating how two cops in a Hoysala van had allegedly stopped them around 12:30 am when they were returning from a friend’s place after cutting a birthday cake. Karthik also claimed that they had to wire Rs1,000 through a payment app to one of the cops before they let them go.

The claim that the policemen are supposed to have made is that the law forbade them from roaming at night after 11 pm. “I would like to share a traumatic incident my wife and I encountered he night before. It was around 12:30 midnight. 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). We were a few metres away from our entrance gate when a pink Hoysala patrol van stopped by us. Two men in police uniforms asked us to show our ID cards. We were taken aback. Why should an adult couple walking on the street on a normal day be asked to show their ID cards?” Karthik tweeted.

“We apologised for being ignorant about the rule and assured them of not venturing out at night again. We thought we were over it, but it was as if the two men were waiting for this moment. They refused to let us go and demanded Rs 3,000 as penalty. Our hearts sank,” he tweeted.

“I agreed to pay Rs 1,000 and get done with it. The man immediately held up a PayTM QR code, waited for me to scan it and make the payment, and let us go with a stern warning: “If I and my wife are ever seen walking on road at midnight, they would register a strong case against us,” he added.

Karthik had tagged Bengaluru City Police and the commissioner’s Twitter handle and they responded and initiated proceedings against the cops.