Video of cop pedalling ice-cream cart goes viral in Kanpur

KANPUR: Video of a policeman pedalling an ice-cream cart while its vendor running behind it went viral on social media on Wednesday. The video was shot by some passerby in Barra area of the city.
Many people termed the police action as harassment of the poor amid the Covid-19 lockdown.
According to sources, the vendor was parking his ice-cream cart when all of a sudden, two policemen on a Zebra bike approached him and started reprimanding him.Before the vendor could explain himself, one of the policemen got down from the bike and took the ice-cream cart into his possession. The cop then started pedalling the cart while the vendor ran behind him, and pleaded him not to harass him and return his cart.
SP (south) Aparna Gupta, however, said that the video was shot when curfew came into force after 9 pm on Tuesday.
“It was during this time that the policemen on the Zebra vehicle were imposing curfew in the Barra area. While patrolling, they came across a vendor selling ice-cream beyond the permissible timings. Taking it to be an offence, one of the policemen reprimanded the vendor and took possession of the ice-cream cart. The cop then started pedalling and asked the vendor to follow him to the police station. However, the policemen released his cart midway and warned him not to sell ice-cream in curfew hours,” said the SP.
“During the incident, someone filmed it and made the video viral on social media,” added Gupta.
SP Gupta further said that later it also came to the fore that some policemen on patrol were drunk. “An investigation has been ordered and further action will depend on the findings of the probe,” she said.