Mumbai: Earlier today, Mumbaikars and twitteratti were a-flutter with outrage when a video emerged of a woman was being towed away in her vehicle while she was breastfeeding her child in Malad, Mumbai.
An inquiry had been ordered into the matter and a constable was suspended following the scandal.
The woman in question, Jyoti Male, had gone to Malad to run some errands along with her husband and child and parked her car on the busy S V road. This caused an obstruction in the movement of the other vehicles and traffic police soon arrived at the scene to rectify the issue.
The police claimed that Male got inside the car with her baby when they were about to tow the vehicle and refused to step out despite the constable’s many requests and even after Malad police were called in to help.
Car was towed by Traffic Police while the women with her 7 years old baby was sitting in the car.
(Her FB Live)
Yesterday at SV Rd, Malad.@MumbaiPolice plz look into the matter.@PreetiSMenon @aartic02 @neo_pac @tarsemkpahi @Georgekurian4K @RidlrMUM @smart_mumbaikar pic.twitter.com/ZVPtSYYFdM— Muzzammil Hamidani (@MuzzammilAap) November 11, 2017
In the video it can be seen that Male is inside the car with her baby and pleading with the cops to stop towing the vehicle as she was unwell and with a baby. Her husband (taking the video) can also be heard begging the cops to stop. By-standers can also be heard making similar requests and protesting the cops’ actions.
As per the law, a vehicle cannot be towed while a person is inside.
According to an official, the couple was taken to the police station where the husband paid the fine for unauthorised parking.
Plot twist
In a twist straight out of Tarentino’s script, another video has emerged, but this time it is of the events that preceded the fiasco seen in the earlier video.
‘He said, she said’ has taken on a whole new meaning in a technological sense of the term as the counter video clearly shows the constable’s repeated attempts to make the woman step out of the vehicle while, and this point is key, the baby was in the arms of a man, most likely the father of the child.
In the video, police in khakis as well as the traffic cops can been seen trying to coax the woman out of the car saying that the vehicle was already attached to the tow truck and that there was nothing that could be done. The video does not show whether Male was in the car before the car was attached to the tow truck or even when the police began to tow the car, as the video stops in the middle of the commotion.
It is not known if the car was towed before or after the child was placed the mother’s hands.
