Patna: Quick-thinking police officers in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, mimicked the sound of gunshots to scare away suspects after their firearm suddenly got jammed during an encounter.
The criminals were eventually apprehended.
The incident took place in the Sambhal district of Uttar Pradesh on Friday.
#WATCH: Police personnel shouts 'thain thain' to scare criminals during an encounter in Sambhal after his revolver got jammed. ASP says, 'words like 'maaro & ghero' are said to create mental pressure on criminals. Cartridges being stuck in revolver is a technical fault'. (12.10) pic.twitter.com/NKyEnPZukh
— ANI UP (@ANINewsUP) October 13, 2018
Reports said two suspects were fleeing after committing a crime, when policemen chased them.
The fleeing pair were wanted on charges of snatching and robbery.
While police managed to arrest one of them, his accomplice hid in a sugar cane field and began firing at the police.
Officers surrounded the field and began returning fire.
However, a peculiar situation arose when a pistol that was being used by one of the officers jammed.
Without wasting time, the ingenious cops then began shouting “thain, thain” (mimicking gun sounds) and “maro, maro” (kill him, kill him), to put pressure on the criminal hiding inside the sugar cane field.
Eventually, they were able to catch him.
The incident was caught on camera and was later shared on social media.
“The revolver had got stuck during the encounter and so the cops began mimicking the gun sounds to put pressure on the criminal. In between, the cops got the time to [make] the revolver [work again],” Sambhal district superintendent of police Yamuna Prasad told Gulf News by phone on Sunday.
“He said the mimicking is a normal process in such a situation. The cops are trained to do that at the time of emergency to use this period to get the firearms functional or at least put pressure on the targets,” he explained. In this case, though, the firearm functioned again, he added.
Another senior police official gave similar explanation. “Words like ‘maaro’ (kill) and ‘ghero’ (nab him) are said to create mental pressures on the criminals,” Sambhal’s additional superintendent of police Pankaj Kumar Pandey Kumar Pandey told news agency ANI. He added the cartridges being stuck in the revolver was a technical fault.
On Twitter, many users reacted to the incident by criticising UP police for their failure to keep their firearms operational.
“UP police the best,” commented one tweep @Savagely_Single. Another tweep used the incident to create a joke in which a UP cop is heard creating firecracker sounds from his mouth when the son asks him why he didn’t bring firecrackers for Diwali.
