Who is actually mentally unstable ?

I was at Chennai Central station today morning to pick up my parents who had come for
their annual weekly visit to Chennai. May is not a nice time to be in Chennai. Infact most Chennai-vasis head for cooler places in May, to escape the furnace-like sun. But then with
only 3 seasons (hot, hotter, hottest) in Chennai, there is actually no ideal time to visit Chennai.

I had arrived 30 mins before the scheduled arrival time and had some time to kill. Got a
copy of the Deccan Chronicle (DC) to while away the time. The DC is supposed to be the
latest English newspaper in town. I have been reading The Hindu for decades now and I
am yet to see any other English newspaper in India that even comes close to it in providing
a complete and fulfilling reading experience. It would be grossly unfair to even consider
the DC as competition to The Hindu.

The DC is just a glossy tabloid with shoddy reporting, poor and gramatically wrong English,
and low-quality newsprint. The only good thing about the D.C. is the glamour shots of movie stars and Page3 personalities and gossip about both Indian and Hollywood film stars. Nice to while away time, but not if you are serious about news.

Anyway, while I am reading the latest on Britney Spears & Paris Hilton (they are permanent fixtures in the DC), I see a mentally challenged person roam about the railway station. The Railway Protection Force (RPF) constable asks him to clear of the station, but is ignored.
A couple of RPF guys go up to him and try to make him leave the station, which he resists.
They push him, he falls and then they manhandle him, without even taking into consideration that he is not capable of rational thinking like normal people.

Soon a small crowd gathers and by the time other RPF guys arrive and clear the crowd, the
guy is bruised at many places and bleeding. There are many like him that roam the streets
of Chennai. Agree that they do not need to be in a railway station. But lacking a home and
people to take care of them, where should they go ? And even if you want them off a public place, there are better and humane ways to achieve that.

The guy has now been shoo-ed out of the station and things are getting back to normal when
a Tamilnadu Police inspector arrives at the scene after hearing about this incident. He calls
the RPF guys and gives them a good verbal lashing for hitting the guy. His point is, "What is
the need to use force, especially on a mentally unstable person ? What if he gets seriously injured or even dies ? Who will take the responsibility ?"

The RPF guys are now silent and try giving excuses for their highhandedness, like "We did not hit him. He fell down by himself and got injured." etc. However, there were enough eye-witnesses around who told an entirely different story. The police inspector was really incensed by the behaviour of the RPF guys and was talking about having them put behind bars.

Even though rare, it was good to see a policeman being humane and considerate towards civilians. By the time I left, the RPF top brass had also landed and if I am right, they would have arrived at some kind of settlement with the T.N. police.