Mumbai: A 25-year-old woman in Mumbai has been fined by the police for allegedly shouting and abusing bystanders at public places and creating a ruckus inside the suburban MIDC police station.
On September 17 night, Sunita Yadav, a receptionist at a hotel in suburban Parel, began misbehaving with the driver of a taxi she had hired in a drunk state, said Mumbai police spokesperson Dhananjay Kulkarni.
"She abused the driver in a drunk state and abused passersby, which prompted him to drive her to the MIDC police station. When police officers on duty at the police station enquired about her, she did not spare them either," the police official said.
She was allowed to leave the police station after being fined Rs. 1,200 and made to issue an apology under Section 110 and Section 112 of the Maharashtra Police Act which prohibits indecent behaviour at public places, but not before her antics at the police station were videographed by a cop on duty.
The video which was posted on Facebook, went viral today and purportedly shows the woman consuming beer, flanked by police officers, even as she told cops on duty, "Oye Madamji, Sunita Yadav. Haryana ki hoon main.
Reacting to the incident, bureaucrat-turned-lawyer Abha Singh called the police response "soft" and said that police officers ought to have taken a serious note of it.
"I feel that the police should have slapped Section 353 of the Indian Penal Code, which has a provision of two years' punishment for obstructing government servants from discharging their duties," the lawyer said.
Since the drunk woman obstructed police officials from discharging their duties, they ought to have also slapped Section 85 of the Bombay Prohibition Act, 1949 on her, the lawyer said.
According to Section 85 of the Bombay Prohibition Act 1949, whoever behaves in a disorderly manner under influence of alcohol at a public place, shall if convicted, be jailed for upto six months as well as fined upto Rs. 10,000, the lawyer said.
