The Surajpur District Collector in Chhattisgarh issued a public apology on Saturday after a video of him slapping a man and throwing his phone on the ground for violation of COVID-19 guidelines during the lockdown, went viral on social media.
After the video started doing rounds on the internet, the civil servant faced sharp criticism for physically assaulting a citizen.
In the video, the senior officer, after slapping the man, and throwing his phone on the ground, can be seen ordering the police officers to hit the man again.
Later, in a video statement, Surajpur District Collector Ranbir Sharma said the reason for his outburst was that the man in the viral video lied to the officials and misbehaved with them.
"Today a video is viral on social media in which I am shown slapping a man who was out during lockdown. He said he was out for vaccination but there was no proper documentation to justify his claim.
"Later, he said he was going to visit his grandmother. I slapped him in heat of the moment when he misbehaved," said Sharma.
He said he 'sincerely apologises' for his behavior, and it was never his intention to disrespect the person.
"The COVID-19 situation in Surajpur is bad. I along with my parents tested positive recently. We all employees of the state government are striving hard to tackle this problem," he said.
The collector further said that contrary to the claim on social media of the man in the video being a minor, 'he is 23-year-old and was speeding and not stopping his two-wheeler despite being told to do so. Later misbehaved with officials'.
Reportedly, the man was later charged under the Epidemic Diseases Act for violating COVID-19 norms.
