Hyderabad: When Swiggy delivery agent Shabbir Azam received an order in the middle of the night on May 7, little did he know that it would land him in trouble with the police. A resident of the Old City, a late night ice-cream order took him to Secunderabad. What should have been an easy task soon turned into a nightmare as unruly policemen not only roughed him up but also thrashed him, all caught on camera.
The delivery agent says that the police also tried to erase the CCTV footage but were unsuccessful.
His ordeal would have simply been an allegation had the entire thing not been caught on CCTV cameras, which caused outrage. The cop who thrashed him was none other than Ramgopalpet Station House Officer (SHO) Sudheer Kumar, who in fact told Siasat.com Azam was “aggressive” and that he slapped the delivery boy “in the heat of the moment”.
The Swiggy delivery however had an entirely different tale to tell. “I got an order at 2:57 a.m. Some shops take take orders late at night and mine was a pickup from a Scoops outlet. I work in the Banjara Hills zone but we get orders from far at times. When I reached the pickup location, there was another Zomato agent there as well who got his order and left. But very soon a few policemen arrived,” he called.
Took out my phone to record for my safety as per policy: Swiggy agent
According to Azam, a policemen first arrived and began enquiring why he was there. “When I told them I have an order from Swiggy, he snatched my order and then told the ice cream shop to open the shutter. They took the worker from the shop and said they are booking a case. I requested the cop to release me as it is ice cream and it will melt. It is company policy to take a video in such situations for our own safety which is why I removed my phone to shoot a video,” he explained.
It is after he removed his phone to shoot a video that the policemen got violent. The cop who Azam was talking to called the SHO, who reportedly began shouting him. “I was explaining to him that it is an order online and not an offline purchase. He was hitting me while I was trying to explain things to him,” he added. In the CCTV video, the SHO can be clearly seen slapping Azam and then thrashing him with a stick.
Cops came to delete CCTV footage of my assault: Azam
The Swiggy delivery agent further informed that the Ramgopalpet police then brought the manager outside and began hitting him too. “He then told the police that they can’t hit us and said that they have permission to function online. The police then spoke to each other on wireless talkies, and another patrol team came,” Azam recalled.
He alleged that once things calmed down, a policeman later came to collect the CCTV footage from the store that was recorded. “I also told the store owner to speak to my manager because I could get fired due to the order cancellation. Luckily because of the video my job was saved and even my manager was shocked. The police normally check our licenses and registration cards but never hit us,” said Azam.
Azam has since been booked under Section 70(B) of the Hyderabad Police Act. The manager of Scoops Ice Cream was also booked for allowing operations during late-night hours. The incident has drawn sharp criticism online, with many questioning why the delivery executive was charged at all given that it was the officer caught on camera assaulting him.
