MNS leader punishing errant taxi drivers in Mumbai: Skirting law, gaining support

MNS leader Nitin Nandgaonkar dished out his own brand of justice by forcing a taxi driver, who was not wearing his badge or uniform, to do sit-ups at Mumbai airport.

Nandgaonkar got one of his accomplices to record the incident and later uploaded it to his Facebook account. The video, uploaded on February 17, has been shared over a thousand times and been viewed by lakhs of netizens till date.

In the video, the MNS leader and his entourage can be seen asking the cabbie to admit his violation and do sit-ups. It is mandatory for all taxi and auto drivers operating in the city to wear the uniform and badge while on-duty.

“I saw a taxi driver at Mumbai airport without his driver uniform and badge. I told him that he should operate legally. At that point, I did what I felt what was suitable,” Nandgokar told ANI.

Nandgaonkar came across the taxi driver when he had gone to the airport. He confronted him after noticing that he was not adhering to the rules.

“Public safety in danger as there are illegal taxi and auto drivers who don’t have registered batches and uniforms… They are getting this freedom as police and RTO police is allowing them for just a petty amount,” he wrote in his post.

“If from now onwards any such drivers are caught without uniforms or batches then be ready for the circumstances from my side as a MAHARASHTRA SAINIK,” he wrote further.

The MNS leader, incidentally, has been gaining a lot of popularity on social media for his ‘judge, jury and executioner’ style of working.

He has also uploaded several other videos in which he can be seen punishing taxi and auto drivers who either flouted rules or tried to cheat the common man. In one of them, he traces a taxi driver who had exorbitantly overcharged a female commuter.

In some of the videos, Nandgaonkar claims that he will be hitting the errant drivers, but none of them actually show him assaulting anyone. However, both him and his enrourage can be seen heckling and abusing drivers in some of the posts.

Interestingly, since none of the drivers ever approached the cops and filed a complaint against Nandgaonkar, no police action has been initiated against him.

The number of positive comments on his posts are also a testament to the fact that despite skirting the law, Nandgaonkar enjoys a lot of support from netizens who have either fallen victim to a taxi/auto driver’s unfair practice themselves or know someone who has.

“Great job done by this man. This work is of police but a common man is trying to bring change. Keep going on,” read a comment by Gaurav Kadam.

His Facebook page, which is less than 3 months old, has already garnered over 60,000 likes.