On the evening of June 2, two sisters, both in Class X, were heading home on a two-wheeler from a tuition class in West Delhi.
Just as the girls were beneath a flyover, crossing to the other side of a congested road, someone rammed into their scooter from behind.
They turned around and saw a man on a bike, who proceeded to apologise. ‘Sorry didi’, he said.
When they got back home, they narrated the incident to their father.
“They told me that they got into an argument with a man who hit their two-wheeler from behind. He also talked down to them. I told them it’s okay, these things happen on the road,” said the father.
A couple of days later, his sister-in-law sent him a link. “It was a YouTube video of my girls being hit by a bike, and a man apologising to them,” he said.
The creator’s name was Gurman Singh (32). And this wasn’t the first such video he had made.
The father said that in the video, Gurman is heard preaching to his daughters about how to drive. “In the comments, people said inappropriate things about them. They are children,” he fumed.
The father said he asked an acquaintance to get him in touch with the YouTuber. He managed to reach Gurman’s neighbour and asked him to tell the creator to delete the video of his daughters.
“The next day, the neighbour told me that Gurman wasn’t going to delete it. When I said I’d file a police complaint, he told me that many people have filed cases against Gurman,” said the father.
He went to the police and filed a complaint against Gurman for allegedly stalking his minor daughters on his two-wheeler, passing objectionable comments, and then uploading the clip on his channel without consent.
Police said the accused was arrested under charges of the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences (POCSO) Act and various sections of the BNS.
A police officer confirmed that at least four previous complaints had been filed against Gurman for similar videos.
A pattern of videos
Gurman’s channel, ‘Road Safety Wala’, with roughly 70,000 subscribers, is filled with clips of him heckling women, trans people, children and senior citizens by honking in their faces and hitting their two-wheelers, and then provoking them to get what he calls ‘reactions’.
But the accused, who is medium height with a well built frame and thick mop of hair, rarely features in the videos. He records them with a Go-Pro camera attached to his bike’s side mirror, which most commuters are not able to spot.
In one of his videos, he targeted trans people on a scooter. “Bike kheechte hain (let’s move the bike closer) and get reactions from some people,” he is heard saying in a casual tone, before moving his bike near the group and accelerating it to create a deafening ‘vroom’ sound.
The group is visibly angry, and asks him to behave. “Aaram se bolo (speak calmly),” he responds.
The probe
The Delhi Police are probing several allegations against the YouTuber: risk to public safety; harassment of two-wheeler riders, mostly women and girls; and uploading videos of people on social media without consent.
Police said Gurman, a resident of Subhash Nagar in West Delhi, allegedly operated social media accounts on Facebook and YouTube, where he uploaded videos passing objectionable comments against mostly women riders without their consent.
“A team carried out extensive digital forensic analysis, technical surveillance and examination of electronic evidence before tracing and apprehending Gurman Singh,” said Deputy Commissioner of Police (DCP) Hareshwar Swami.
During questioning, the accused allegedly told police that he created such videos to increase his social media following, generate viral content, and earn revenue through monetisation on Facebook and YouTube.
He further told officers that he intentionally targeted women riders because such videos generated higher engagement and also gave him personal gratification, police said.
The Delhi Police are probing several allegations against the YouTuber: risk to public safety; harassment of two-wheeler riders, mostly women and girls; and uploading videos of people on social media without consent. (Express photo) 
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