Kerala's latest screwball comedy starring yet another godman was played out right inside a police station at Aluva here on Saturday morning. This was staged by Swami Himaval Bhadranandaji, an engineering course dropout-turned-political prophet, godman and maker of fine holy ashes from thin air.

The Swami had the whole state watching him live on TV as he pranced about in the police station with a fully loaded .32 revolver pressed to his own head, vowing to pull the trigger to teach the local media a deadly lesson for daring to give him a bad press.

All through the two-hour drama hogging all TV channels in the state, the cops made no attempt at all to disarm the godman lording over their police station — he even had the cops help recharge his mobile so that he could keep calling up people with his free hand and held the gun with the other. Senior police officers kept pleading with him to go easy on the trigger.

The drama ended with the Swami pulling the trigger, finally. But instead of shooting the reporters or himself, he shot through the police station roof. A bullet grazed his own left hand and the godman collapsed in a howling heap, leaving startled cops in the room to run for their lives. The police, however, picked up a media reporter who screamed and went down as soon as the swami fired. The police rushed him to hospital while TV channels began saying he had been shot. But the man soon came to, only to say he had fainted in fright.

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