In a shocking incident of road rage in the capital city, five youths on Thursday afternoon severely thrashed an auto rickshaw driver for overtaking their two-wheeler in front of the BJP office on Janpath at Kharavel Nagar here.
The youths dragged out the auto driver from his vehicle, in which a family was travelling, and beat him black and blue on the busy road, a stone’s throw distance from the Kharvel Nagar police station.
When some mediapersons intervened to come to the rescue of the auto rickshaw driver the miscreants also tried to assault them. This enraged some locals, who tried to get hold of the hooligans.
But the youths managed to escape from the spot by their scooters.
Police reached the spot after some time; and after going through the footage of the incident filmed by a television channel crew, identified the culprits and said they were a group of antisocial elements involved in brown sugar peddling.
City DCP Satyabrata Bhoi said police have identified the miscreants, lodged a case suo motto and launched a manhunt to nab them.