Karnataka & Madhya Pradesh: Civil Servants Misbehave, Assault Public; Videos Go Viral

Bengaluru's civic chief on May 24 apologised for an incident in which a boy was badly beaten up, by unknown persons for apparently refusing to get tested for Covid-19. “We regret the incident at Nagarathpet testing booth," Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Palike (BBMP) Commissioner Gaurav Gupta tweeted on May 24. The undated video shows a handful of personnel at a Covid-19 testing desk set up before a temple in Nagarathpet. Two of them can be seen trying to verbally coerce a young boy into getting tested while he firmly refuses. Following his determined rebuttal, some of the officials begin to manhandle the boy.  He is held by the scruff of his neck, shoved, thrashed, and has his arm twisted. He falls down, but is dragged up and his face shoved down to the table. In a similar incident of assault by the authorities on general public, the Additional District Magistrate of Shajapur in Madhya Pradesh, who was out on a drive to enforce lockdown guidelines, was seen slapping a shopkeeper.