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Do you think twice before buying a T-shirt with a cool quote? Maybe you will now.
In what could be called a bizarre case of moral policing, a Bengaluru man was harassed at Forum Mall Koramangala for wearing a T-shirt that read: ‘Stop Jerking Start F**king.’
Yes, for something written on his T-shirt! Watch it to believe it:
The man in red T-shirt, was at a PVR outlet to watch a film. He was stopped on his way to the washroom by a fellow moviegoer (not a PVR authority) and questioned for wearing a T-shirt with ‘indecent things’ written on it.
Parul Agrawal, who happened to witness the entire incident, later posted a video on Facebook condemning the ridiculousness of the situation.
“The guy was asked to exit PVR premises, buy a new T-shirt, change and then enter the theatre,” Agarwal wrote in her post.
The accuser then managed to gather a couple of men in uniform and to everyone’s surprise, the policemen took the moral policing a notch higher.
In the video, we see the man in a red T-shirt defend himself logically by saying, “It was available in the market. It’s okay to sell it, but not wear it?” But of course his logic fell on deaf ears.
“The presence of the policemen made it difficult for regular people to jump in and help the guy. People wondered if he really had done something wrong. Was it theft or eve-teasing, when all he did was wear a T-shirt?” Agrawal explained when The Quint reached out to her.
When the man resigned and turned to leave the premises, the policemen called him back to take pictures of him for evidence!
“That’s when me and my friends, along with some other bystanders raised voices and asked what was so wrong about wearing a T-shirt and what law he was flouting by being in a public place in that garment,” Agrawal shared.
Agrawal also reached out to Bengaluru Police via Twitter.
The police department promptly responded to her tweet.:
What Does Law Say On T-Shirt Rights?
Agrawal’s post naturally stirred conversation on the rightfulness of policemen for having a say on what a man could or couldn’t wear. It also raised the question if the man in the red T-shirt was really in the wrong for brandishing words that may offend others.
Some threw Section 292 of IPC that covers obscenity in public.
The Quint consulted Bengaluru based advocate Alok Prasanna Kumar to understand if the man in red T-shirt really broke any law.
“From the reports that I have read, it seemed pretty clear that no offense is made out. It wasn’t like that man was randomly targeting people in the mall and forcing them to read his T-shirt. There is obviously no obscenity involved. It is not that these words aren’t used in daily language. You may not like it and you have every right to ignore it,” said Kumar.
If this came under the purview of obscenity and if cops started randomly stopping people for using them then half the country would be behind the bars. I think it was a misplaced show of authority on the part of the cops. If they seriously decided to file an FIR against this poor chap for wearing that T-shirt, they wouldn’t last a minute in court.
To get on the right side of law on the matter, Agrawal too reached out to supreme court lawyer KV Dhananjay. Here’s what he had to say.
The section 292 of IPC that does prohibit vulgarity takes into consideration the magnanimity, impact, and provocation aspect. A man wearing a T-Shirt is giving you all the rights to ignore. It is an issue of sensibility more than an issue of promoting vulgarity in a public place. The young do all sorts of things to attract attention and in a democracy the best way to deal with it is to ignore.KV Dhananjay, Lawyer, Supreme Court
To help investigate the matter further, Agrawal has written to Bengaluru Police DGP with an attached copy of the video.
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