Fined for Not Wearing Helmet, Electrician Disconnects Police Station’s Power in

They say revenge is a dish best served cold, but a government electricity employee in UP’s Firozabad exacted his own misplaced revenge on the police department after being fined for not wearing a helmet while riding a 2-wheeler. In a bizarrely skewed tit-for-tat move, the employee by the name of Srinivas cut off the electric supply of Line Par police station in Firozabad district of Uttar Pradesh. What had transpired was that the electrician had been fined by the police for not wearing a helmet while riding his bike after he was returning from Labour Colony post repairing a fault. When the police sub-inspector Ramesh Chandra stopped the electrician for not wearing a helmet, he got the sub-inspector in touch with his supervisor, a junior engineer. The junior engineer also requested the sub-inspector to let the electrician go, but the sub-inspector followed the rules and issued a challan of Rs. 500 in the name of Srinivas who happened to be on duty at the time when challan was issued.

The police station had to remain without any power for around 5 hours after the disgruntled electrician decided to exact his own brand of revenge with the police. However, Srinivas also had an interesting bit of information to share. Srinivas says that when the police sub-inspector was talking to him about the rules of traffic, Sirnivas informed the sub-inspector that the rules for paying the electricity charges also existed as the police station had a pending bill of Rs. 6.62 lakhs with the power department.

It was after the failure of even this argument that Srinivas proceeded with disconnecting the power to the police station. The police station’s power dues claim is not unsubstantiated as later it was found that the Line Par police station indeed had around Rs. 7 lakhs in dues. However, the lineman Sirnivas was never ordered to disconnect the power of the police station and he did the same at his own discretion. Another fact is that the local employees of the electricity department had not got paid since past four months and were disgruntled. Add to this a fine of Rs. 500 and perhaps Srinivas’s patience gave way and he proceeded to take this drastic measure.

Nevertheless, this remains a wrong act on the part of Srinivas as the sub-inspector was only following the law and the lineman was indeed violating the traffic laws. Later on, even the act of disconnecting the power of the police station without being ordered to do so was overreach on the part of Srinivas. Still, this remains a bizarre case of a citizen exacting revenge on the authorities in a very odd manner.