2 ice-cream store employees rough up customer, his kids

The manager and bouncer of an ice-cream shop at Sat Paul Mittal Road (Malhar road) have been booked for allegedly thrashing a car dealer, who had gone there with his family on late Friday night.

The victim, identified as Prabhjot Singh, 45, of Lajpat Nagar of Model Gram, said the accused had also manhandled his children.

He said that on Friday night, he, along with his wife and two children, had gone to the shop to have ice cream. After placing their order, they were waiting to be served but the employees kept ignoring them and served the other customers. When he asked one of the employees about this, he started misbehaving and called the bouncer.

The manager, Dharminder Bakshi, and the bouncer then allegedly roughed him up and also manhandled his children. When other customers present at the spot intervened and started recording a video of the incident, the shop employees allegedly threatened them too. The videos of the incident are being circulated on social media sites.

Prabhjot alleged that the ice-cream shop employees had hidden baseball bats, iron rods and sharp-edged weapons behind the counters. He also questioned why there was a need for bouncers in an ice-cream shop where people used to go with their families.

Based on his complaint, police have registered a case against Ice Cream studio manager Dharminder Bakshi and bouncer Rupinderjit Singh of Shaheed Bhagat Singh Nagar. The complainant stated that the shop owner was politically connected and was pressurising him to arrive at a compromise.

He alleged that the shop employees have destroyed the closed-circuit television (CCTV) camera footage to save themselves.

Sub-inspector Richa Rani, Division Number 5 station house officer, said police have registered a case against the manager and bouncer under Sections of 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 341 (wrongful restrain), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 34 (act done by several persons in furtherance of common intention) of the Indian Penal Code. A hunt is on for the accused.

On the other hand, Bakshi has refuted the allegations. He stated that Prabhjot had got into a spat with another customer and when they intervened, he started abusing them. When asked for the CCTV footage, Joshi said that CCTVs of the shop were not working.