On Friday, July 7, in Jamui City’s Kachhari Chowk in Bihar, a policeman threw the entire basket of berries of a tribal woman on the ground. The policeman did so after the woman refused to give the berries to the policeman for free. Following this incident, a crowd of locals congregated at Kachahri Chowk.
Taking note of the situation’s seriousness, the police officials gave the woman Rs 400 as compensation and tried to settle the matter. On the day of the incident, Constable Mahesh Singh brought the prisoners to Jamui court in a prisoner’s vehicle. Meanwhile, the tribal woman named Sanjhali Marandi was selling berries at Kachahri Chowk when Constable Singh asked for berries as ‘commission’.
However, the tribal woman refused to give the berries as a commission. As the woman was adamant about not giving the ‘commission’, an agitated constable threw the basket full of berries on the road and then trampled them. Subsequently, the locals and the police entered into a heated argument.
The victims, Sanjhali Marandi and Sarita Soren travel 15 kilometres from Tarakura village in the Barhat police station area to sell berries at Kachahri Chowk with their young child.
The victim woman claimed that she brought around ten kilograms of berries to sell, however, the police officials would harass her and take one or two kilograms of berries without paying for them. On the other hand, Mahesh Singh claimed that there was a problem in passing the prisoner’s vehicle due to the basket of berries. He claimed that he did not deliberately throw the basket on the road but rather was only removing it. He added that berries turned over and fell on the road as he was removing the basket.
Meanwhile, Headquarters DSP Abhishek Singh stated that if the driver or police officers were at fault for this behaviour, appropriate action would be taken after an investigation.
Taking to Twitter on Saturday, Jamui Police, said that following the appearance of the undertrials, a prisoner van and a scout were taking the prisoners back from the court premises. Two tribal women were selling berries by setting a basket of them out on the road near the Hanuman Temple, but because there was not sufficient space for the prisoners’ vehicles to pass through, both the scout’s car and the prisoners’ vehicle had to come to a stop.
सोशल मीडिया पर वायरल वीडियो की हक़ीक़त।#JamuiPolice#BiharPolice pic.twitter.com/cxYWDXoojL
— JAMUI POLICE (@JamuiPolice) July 8, 2023
When Havildar driver Mahesh Prasad Singh started to remove the basket containing the aforementioned berries, it fell to the ground hastily, and the berries inside the basket also toppled out. A video was shot at the same time and went viral on social media.