For a while now, since the announcement of demonetisation, people are having a hard time withdrawing money from banks. In fact, it's a challenge to find banks and ATMs without a queue outside it.
In the last couple of days, there have been several incidents of ruckus, stone pelting and road blockade by irate customers, unable to withdraw their money.
There have been reports of people yelling and hurling abuses at the bankers too. However, that doesn't justify the act of a security guard who started firing gunshots to disperse a crowd gathered outside a bank.
On Tuesday morning, a security guard posted at the HDFC Bank branch in Budhlada town of Punjab, 20km from district headquarters Mansa, fired at least three times in the air to disperse the crowd that had gathered to withdraw money.
According to deputy superintendent of police (DSP) Gurmeet Singh, "the crowd got so impatient that the glass doors of the bank developed cracks".
"Out of fear, the guard fired a gunshot in the air to disperse the crowd," he said.
Watch the incident here:
Barwala SHO Umed Singh said Anil Kumar, the guard at the HDFC's Barwala branch, had had been booked under Section 285 (negligent conduct with respect to fire or combustible matter).
Singh said that no one was hurt in the incident.
Two days earlier, in Punjab's Maur Mandi town, a 25-year-old pregnant dancer was shot dead in a celebratory firing.
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