A man is standing next to a car in the middle of a petrol pump – and in his hand is a sickle. As another man who seems to be with him watches on, he charges towards a building that is beyond the camera’s frame, brandishing the sickle. He then tries to hack at something or someone, not visible in the video, screaming, “I’ll rape your mother!”
This is Tej Kumar, a Congress leader from Karnataka’s Madikeri area, and a supporter of Karnataka Energy Minister DK Shivakumar. In fact, Tej Kumar is the President of the Kodlipete DK Shivakumar Fans Association.
At least two videos that have now surfaced show Tej Kumar at the SR Petrol Pump in Kodlipete that he owns, brandishing a sickle and threatening people, who were reportedly cheated by his chit fund company and were demanding their money back.
In one of the videos, a group of people can be seen standing on one side of the petrol pump, while Tej Kumar is standing on the opposite side. He is seen brandishing his weapon again and yelling, “If anyone comes near this petrol pump, I’ll hack you up. I’ll rape your mother, I’ll rape your sister!”
A man from the group of people standing on the opposite side says, “Where is the money?” Tej Kumar then walks towards a car, turns back to the people standing and says, “I told you I will give the money back. Now go.”
According to the Shanivarasante police, the videos were taken about a month ago. “A lot of locals had invested in his chit fund investment operation. For the past few months, he had not returned money to some of the investors. They had come to the petrol pump to ask him for the money when he threatened them,” the police said.
However, so far, the police have not fired an FIR against the politician; they say, they have not received any complaints from the victims regarding these threats.
“An FIR has not yet been filed because the video surfaced today. We are trying to track down people who were present at the petrol pump. We know it happened last month but the date is also not clear yet. If no one comes forward to register a complaint, then we will hold a meeting with senior officers to take a call on registering a suo motu complaint,” an officer said.
According to the police, Tej Kumar had come under their scanner as they suspect his involvement in several illegal sand mining cases in the region as well.
Tej Kumar was unavailable for comment.
This is not the first instance of politicians being involved in thuggery. On February 16, former KR Puram block Congress President, Narayanaswamy, threatened to set the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike ward office in Horamavu on fire. A video of Narayanaswamy pouring kerosene inside the office had gone viral, after which he surrendered to the police on February 24.
In September 2017, the video of Dakshina Kannada BJP MP, Nalin Kumar Kateel intimidating the Kadri police inspector Maruthi Nayak had gone viral. Nalin Kumar was heard threatening the inspector of “shutting down Mangaluru” if he did not let go of BJP leaders who were detained for participating in a bike rally, which had not received police permission.
In January last year, a video of Union Minister of State for Skill Development, Anantkumar Hedge assaulting hospital staff had gone viral. In the video, Hegde is seen thrashing doctors at a private hospital in Uttara Kannada’s Karwar area.