Brother-sister duo arrested for slapping female constable in Vile Parle

In yet another incident of attack on a public servant, a female traffic constable was allegedly slapped by a motorist who was stopped for riding without a helmet in Vile Parle on Tuesday morning.

The incident occurred around 11:30 am on Tuesday when the constable Priyanka Khot was manning a check post opposite Shyam Cinema near the Parle-G factory in Vile Parle. When Khot saw a female rider travelling without a helmet on the Honda Activa, she asked her to stop.

The rider, identified as Aarti Patlekar, started arguing with the constable over paying the Rs 500 fine. The argument soon escalated and Patlekar ended up slapping the constable on her cheek in a fit of rage. Following which, the 23-year-old called her brother for ‘backup’.

Her brother, Sudarshan Patlekar (30), arrived after a few minutes and started arguing with the cops and boasting about his contacts. Eventually, more officers arrived on the spot and intervened.

The brother-sister duo were then taken to Vile Parle police station and arrested under sections 332 (voluntarily causing hurt to deter public servant from performing duty) and 353 (assault or criminal force to deter public servant from discharge duty) of the Indian Penal Code. The two were produced in court yesterday and remanded in police custody for a day.

In last 2 weeks alone, multiple cases of attacks on police officials have been reported. Last week, traffic constable Vilas Shinde, who was attacked by two brothers when he stopped the younger one for riding without a helmet, succumbed to his injuries as a result of the viscous attack.

Another drunk driver tried to run over a traffic cop last week in Thane while a group of youngsters from Kalyan tried to drown a policeman in a visarjan pond yesterday.