Police Commissioner Brigadier-General Sitiveni Qiliho, in a statement, said the Police officers captured in a video that went viral on social media could have handled the situation differently.

This was Brigadier-General Qiliho’s response to a video of Police officers allegedly manhandling a public service vehicle (PSV) driver. He has also directed the Internal Affairs Director to investigate the alleged incident.

The video depicts an officer in civilian clothing repeatedly demanding the driver to show him his licence.

He does this without first identifying himself as a Police officer.

The video further shows another officer in uniform appearing to be manhandling the same bus driver.

“The officer could have handled the situation differently to diffuse what was becoming a difficult situation as the bus driver after repeated requests to hand over his driver’s license refused to do so,” Brigadier-General Qiliho said.

“The bus driver’s refusal to co-operate was at the time inconvenient other road users when he refused to move his bus from the said location, which was blocking traffic.”

The bus driver, however has been charged with failure to produce a driving licence, Police spokesperson Ana Naisoro said.

President of the Bus Operators Association, Mr Nisar Ali Shah said the association and the bus company would wait for the law to take its on course.

“Let the law take effect, the Fiji Police will ensure appropriate action is taken by the misconduct of the officer on the bus driver in question,” he said.

“The bus company involved, and the association will just wait for the Police forces action on the matter.

“The by-law states that when a bus driver is seated at the driver’s seat, no one has the authority to remove or hassle him from his seat,” he said.

Questions were sent to the bus company, which the driver is said to be working for, but answers were not available when this edition went to press.

As of yesterday, the video has garnered more than 93,000 views, 1400 reactions, 1400 comments and was shared more than 1500 times. It was posted on Sunday.

Edited by Ranoba Baoa

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