On vigil 24x7!
VADODARA: A SENIOR police officer in Vadodara is increasingly becoming a butt of jokes among the residents. Among his latest exploits was removing the hoardings and posters from shops in Ellora Park. The reason: increase in the number of hoardings and posters, in turn, increases the chances of shops getting burgled. But the shopkeepers have a different take for one of them was heard saying later that police should clamp down the advertising stunts of malls in the city too. A fortnight later, after a rioting incident occurred in Kalyan Nagar of Fatehgunj, the police official was seen chasing a group of youth playing cricket in the night. He was seen chasing the children with a piece of bamboo in his hand, while cops at the opposite Kalyan Nagar police station were dozing off! The residents booed the official and challenged him to step inside the crime-ridden Kalyan Nagar area with the same bamboo stick. On the other hand, the police official defended his action saying that since the children were violating the Commissioner's orders against gully cricket, he had to take the action.

— Contributed by Amrita Didyala, Anupam Chakravartty, Parimal Dabhi, Sibte Hussain Bukhari and Ujjwala Nayudu.