Video of Indian police officer getting body massage from woman colleague goes viral

An Indian police officer who allegedly got a woman colleague to give him a body massage has been suspended. The video of the incident had gone viral on Monday (13 November).

The 36-second video clip shows a woman home guard (voluntary force of the Indian police) giving an Assistant Sub-Inspector (ASI) identified as Mohd Hasan a back massage on an unspecified date.

ASI Hasan has been placed under suspension for his "misconduct", the regional deputy inspector general of police, M Stephen Raveendra told Indian news agency PTI.

According to the superintendent of police of the region M S Vijay Kumar, the incident is said to have occurred around four or five months ago at the armed reserve headquarters in Telangana, a state in south India.

Kumar said that Hasan was apparently suffering from a backache and had requested the home guard to give him a massage. She had apparently obliged willingly.

He reportedly ordered a probe immediately after the video came to his notice.

This is the second such incident reported from the state in the past couple of weeks. On 4 November, the video of an inspector getting a massage by a male home guard had gone viral. The officer concerned — identified as S Lingaiah — was transferred to the police headquarters. Lingaiah has denied the charges against him and has claimed the video is a fake.

In a similar incident in 2016, a sub-inspector from the North Indian state of Uttar Pradesh was caught getting a massage by a colleague and was later reportedly suspended. The police officer later claimed that the massage was necessary as he had a bad backache.