Just Wanted Madam To Say Sorry: Bhopal's Fruit Vendor Whose Cart Was Overturned

Video Editor: Mohd Irshad Alam

"I begged her to stop. I said, 'Madam, don't throw the fruits. This won't help anyone. Your car won't get fixed by doing this. It will only lead to more losses.' She still didn't stop. Even other passers-by tried to stop her. Finally, she overturned the whole cart."

Ashraf Khan

In a viral video from Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh, a woman was caught throwing papayas off a fruit cart. She purportedly lost her cool after the cart, which belonged to Ashraf Khan – a fruit vendor for six years and father of two – touched her car, and left a minor scratch.

“The incident happened on 3 January. I was going with my cart and her car was parked near her house. My cart touched her car and there was a minor scratch on her car. I told her that there is a minor scratch, and I will pay for the damages. But she started throwing papayas off the cart,” Ashraf tells The Quint.

“She also threatened me, to which I told her to call the police,” he adds.

The woman seen in the viral clip is Chitralekha Tiwari, a professor at a private university in Bhopal. Her husband Rajesh Tiwari told The Quint that she has accepted her mistake.

"She is at fault and I accept it. I don't know why she got angry, whether people instigated her, and then she threw the fruits. But when I heard about it I said that this is wrong and it shouldn't have happened.”

Rajesh Tiwari

For Ashraf, selling fruits is his only source of income.

“I earn nearly 10,000 per month. Though I have been selling fruits for the past five-six years, I became totally dependent on this for income after the lockdown,” Ashraf says.

'We Are Nowhere at Fault'

Ashraf's friend Naeem Khan, who is also a fruit vendor, was present at the site of the incident. He says,

“There was a sewage right where she overturned the cart. The papayas fell inside the drain. We are nowhere at fault. In the entire video, you can see that we didn't misbehave. The video was shot and made viral by the people present at the spot. We don't know how to make a video viral.”

According to the police, both parties resolved the issue outside the police station on their own, and Ashraf was paid for the damages.

“The event happened on 3 January and the vendor called the police. The police came and both parties were called to the station where they both had a discussion and decided to not take any legal action. Ashraf was paid for the damages by her husband,” Ajay Nair, in-charge at Piplani police station, Bhopal, said.

Ashraf says losses and damages aside, he expected an apology from the woman for the way she treated him.

“This is not about money, but because I am a fruit seller, so probably that’s why I was treated like this. What hurt me the most is that she did not apologise once,” he says.