Mumbai: Blinded by car's headlights, vagabond whips out toy pistol

With their incessant honking and blinding use of the pass light, some drivers test the patience of everyone on the road. While most people just grit their teeth and curse under their breath to give an outlet to the anger boiling within, some resort to road rage.

For a vagabond, however, the reaction took on a very unusual form on Tuesday night. When a businessman innocently flashed his car's headlights to alert the vagabond and free up parking space, the latter responded by whipping out a pistol and threatening him with it.

Scared out of his wits, the businessman abandoned his car and made a run for it, convinced that he had been the victim of an armed robbery. However, little did he know that the ‘weapon' was a toy pistol, which the homeless man had brandished to punish the businessman for blinding him with his car's headlights.

Drama begins
According to the Amboli police officers, around 10 pm on Tuesday, they received a call on their emergency number, 100, from 25-year-old businessman Jitesh Kalra. Panic dripping from his voice, Kalra told the police that a man had stolen his Honda City at gunpoint.

Kalra told the cops that he was parking his car at Veera Desai road in Andheri (West) metres away from his house when he saw a man sitting on the sidewalk, very close to the parking spot. He flashed the car's headlights to alert the man, who reacted by whipping out a revolver and pouncing towards him. Karla said he was scared and ran for his life, leaving the car door open.

As soon as the police received the information about the armed robbery, they initiated nakabandis at all the roads around the spot of the robbery and handed out the description of the car and the robber. After an hour of checking each car thoroughly, the police officers could not find Kalra's Honda City.

Revelation
Disappointed, some officers asked Kalra to take them to the spot where the robbery had taken place so that could conduct a panchnama and file an FIR. They were shocked when Kalra pointed to a Honda City parked just 150 metres from where he was robbed and claimed that it was his car. He also said that the person sitting on the driver's seat was the one who had threatened him.

The police searched the man and found a toy revolver in his pocket. When the accused was arrested and taken to the police station, he said had just played a prank to teach the businessman a lesson since he was irritated when Kalra had flashed the headlights of the car right on his face.

"We have arrested the man and his medical examination has revealed that he is HIV positive. He stays on the footpath at Pydhonie and had found the toy revolver on the road a few days ago," said Senior Inspector Ramesh Khatkare, from Amboli police station. Because the accused had threatened the man and had driven a certain distance with the vehicle, he was charged with armed robbery.