The scene then cuts to the Peechi police station in Thrissur, where Johny’s, the bus, has been ‘arrested’ or taken into custody. Here as well, the social media team of the Kerala police has used its ingenuity, giving an apt background score - "Johnny Mone Johnny" from the Dulquer Salmaan-starrer ABCD.
The video, which has received over 5 lakh views, has a comical caption as well: ‘You tell… there should be some limit’, to highlight the dangerous stunt pulled off by the driver.
The incident in the video took place three days ago, says the Sub Inspector of Peechi police station. “However, soon after joining the traffic, as seen in the video, the driver was driving in a rash manner and eventually hit another car. The bus was taken into custody and booked under Section 279 of the Indian Penal Code, for rash driving. After the Motor Vehicle inspection, it was released on Wednesday,” he says.
While many on social media appreciated the police’s ingenuity, it also received criticisms, with many pointing out that the video has been manipulated to show the bus overspeeding through the patchy road.
Clarifying this, senior civil police officer Arun BT, who manages the social media pages for Kerala police, told TNM, “The video we put out is actually two videos that went viral a few days ago. The original video was already manipulated to portray the bus as rash driving. We just stitched the two videos together, added dialogues and music.”
He further says, “Through this post, we only intended to urge the motorists to not engage in such dangerous stunts that would put public lives at risk.” The Kerala police also put out a clarification in this regard under the video.
While it is not known if there were passengers on board the bus when the video was shot, the Sub Inspector said the vehicle was empty when the police nabbed the driver and the bus.
The video also has comments criticising the police and asking the force to first fix public infrastructure. But the social media team, too, had some witty responses under its sleeve.
“First construct good roads, uncle… then you show your ‘mass’ (to boast)” read one of the comments, to which the reply said: “Son, uncle can show his mass only through his work, right? Tomorrow, don’t ask us to fly; not because we can’t, but we don’t know how to fly.”
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