Chhattisgarh's Surajpur district collector on Saturday apologised after a video of him hitting a man for a Covid-19 norm violation during the lockdown went viral on social media.

Shortly after a video of him hitting the man went viral on social media, the district collector apologised and blamed the man for his “insolent behaviour”. The district collector said it was “due to the youth's insolent behaviour that I was agitated and thus slapped him.”

“The youth claimed that he was on his way to get vaccinated, but there was no proper documentation. Later, he said he was going to see his grandmother,” the district collector said.

“I never had any intention to disrespect or belittle the person in the video. In this pandemic situation, district Surajpur along with the entire Chhattisgarh state has been facing an irreparable loss of lives. We all employees of the state government are striving hard to tackle this problem,” he said.