Dubai: An expatriate who chased down a suspect who tried to rob a tourist was honoured by Dubai Municipality on Tuesday.
Hamdi Bhansi, who works as a senior public health inspection officer at the municipality, was honoured by Dawood Al Hajiri, director-general of the municipality.
Al Hajiri said: “This courage and dignity should be taken as an example and a model for all. This type of attitude shows the extent of peaceful coexistence and the spirit of social responsibility in the hearts of all members of the society in the country.”
Bhansi, who is from Egypt, was also recognised by Dubai Police earlier.
Recalling the incident, Bhansi, 38, told Gulf News he was parking his car on Muraqqabat Street in August last year when he saw “a weird scene”. A European tourist was chasing three men, one of whom threw a wallet. Concerned, he asked the tourist, a French national, who was with his wife, what had happened.
“He told me the men had taken his wallet from his pocket and he had given them a chase. I immediately ran after the trio, who split up and ran in different directions. I chased one of them down the road. It was like a scene from a movie — we were running between cars, over tables, through trees. I caught up with him and told him, ‘believe me, I’m not letting you go’. I called the police, who arrived within a minute or so,” Bhansi said.
He added that he took the tourist to the police station to file a report and then took him to his hotel.
“I told the tourist that I felt bad for what had happened to him, especially because something like this doesn’t happen in Dubai. He told me he took the experience in a positive way because of how people swung into action to help him.”
Bhansi has been working for the municipality for 10 years and lives in Dubai with his wife and two young daughters, aged two and four.
He said that in 2015 he was honoured by the Department of Economic Development in Dubai for reporting to them some dealers of fake goods.
