The two men reportedly had a confrontation over money. The pedestrian was not injured in the incident, while the officer's whereabouts are unknown.
CCTV in Thane, a city that neighbors Mumbai, clearly captured the incident. The officer, Ramesh Awate, drove his white Toyota Innova into pedestrian Atul Pethe, who ended up sprawled over the hood of the vehicle. Pethe then climbed off and fell to the side of the moving car.
From the video, it appears that Awate intended to sandwich Pethe between his car and a nearby truck. Pedestrians tried to surround Awate, but he put his car and reverse and fled.
"The two have a financial dispute. On April 21, Awate started clicking Pethe's pictures, which led to an altercation. Pethe stood in front of Awate's car, demanding he delete the pictures. But Awate drove off, dragging Pethe up to a few meters," said Deputy Police Commissioner D Swamy, Thane Zone 1.
Allegedly, Awate was enraged because he had borrowed 300,000 rupees ($4,678) from Pethe's mother, and Pethe had asked him to repay the money. The two men were old friends and co-owned an ice cream parlor in Mumbai, but Pethe claims that Awate refused to repay the money and grew angry any time it was brought up.
Awate had come to a shop owned by Pethe's sister and began to shout insults at him. The CCTV camera belonged to the shop.
Pethe went on to say that he had filed police complaints regarding Awate before, but the police didn't take the claims seriously as they concerned one of their friends. Pethe had filed one such claim a few days prior to the incident, which he said was the reason for Awate coming to confront him.
Awate is a member of the Special Branch of Mumbai Police, and was deployed in counterterrorism organizations during the 2008 Mumbai attacks, when Islamic terrorist cell Lashkar-e-Taiba killed more than 160 people in a series of coordinated attacks.
