Sunday, May 24, 2009

Punished for a victimless crime

I first heard of this phrase, victimless crime, in the India Uncut blog. I committed one and got rapped on my knees for this recently.

I visited a friend in Vellore recently and traveled by the Kovai express from Chennai to Vellore. As the train was reaching the Katpadi railway station, I alighted from the train before the train had come to a complete halt (For those who do not know, Indian trains do not have doors that shut close when the train is moving). Though technically this is not something that one should do, the train was just about to stop when I alighted. It would not have moved more than 20 meters from the point I alighted. So, the train was probably moving at like 5KM/hr when I alighted.

But, then there were two hawkish policemen attached to the Katpadi railway station throwing their weight around on me. They pulled me up for my infraction and fined me Rs. 120 for my victimless crime. Not just that, I had to sit in the police station for about 30 minutes and also had to hear homilies on the dangers of alighting from a moving train. The fun did not stop there. They neither gave me a receipt for the fine and nor did they give a copy of the official document on which they took down my signature.

Great fun! :)

3 comments:

Steven Cheng said...

Wow, is this a new trend or sort of normal?

Partha said...

well.. police men do similar all over India all the time! thats not new... but i have never heard of this technique before :) they are becoming smarter.. lol!

Karthik said...

My dear, they are saving you from yourself. The state knows better than you.