BHOPAL: While COVID-19 has spelt doom for the impoverished lot, reducing many of them to push-cart vendors, the pandemic on the flipside is being seen by a few greedy men as a gold mine to exploit. An incident that happened in Bhopal presents both these contrasting pictures.

A 14-year-old boy, eking out a living by selling eggs on his push cart, had to pay a heavy price for refusing to pay a bribe. Looking to fleece him were none other than the civic body officials, who have been forcibly extracting bribes from petty roadside vendors during the coronavirus pandemic times.

Devastated by the COVID-19 time financial stress, the boy decided to sell eggs on a push cart to help his family make both ends meet. Instead of sympathizing with the hard-working teenager, the Bhopal civic body authorities remorselessly demanded a bribe of Rs 100 from him. Call it his innocence or his uprightness, the boy bluntly refused to cough up the bribe. Enraged by his defiance, the heartless Bhopal corporation employees overturned his push-cart laden with eggs on the road.

The incident attracted nationwide attention after a video of the episode was posted on social media. The heartless behaviour of the corporation staff in their lust for easy money evoked widespread condemnation. Using this incident, netizens launched into a ‘no-holds-barred’ attack on the Shivraj Singh Chauhan government in Madhya Pradesh.

In the video, the anguished boy is seen venting out his frustration at the civic body authorities who also smashed the eggs on the road.

In view of the COVID-19 lockdown, the Madhya Pradesh government has implemented a left-right rule. Under this rule, the shops on the right will be allowed to open on one day with the shops on the left allowed to run their businesses the next day. However, this rule has drawn criticism even from the members of the ruling party saying that small businesses are already suffering due to the COVID-19 pandemic and appealed to the government to come to their rescue by removing this rule.