‘We are treated like terrorists and murderers,’ ‘E Bull Jet’ vloggers create a scene at Kannur RTO

Kannur: Two Keralite YouTube vloggers behind the popular ‘E Bull Jet’ channel who were arrested on Monday lashed out at the Motor Vehicles Department, claiming that its officials were trying to put them behind bars by foisting false cases.

The Road Transport Office at Kannur town witnessed high drama as scores of fans gathered in solidarity with the brother duo – Ebin Varghese and Libin Varghese – who are natives of Vilamana near Iritty.

Their supporters resorted to sloganeering even as the brothers argued their case with punch dialogues, but in the end they irked the government employees to such an extent that the cops had to be summoned to whisk them away.

“We had paid the tax. How come we could pay Rs 52,000 penalty during these distressed pandemic times. They are trying to extract money from poor people like us. The police are treating us like terrorists and murderers. No one else should experience this fate in future. It is a witch-hunt for no fault of ours. Only crime we did was becoming world’s topmost van lifers,” said Libin and Ebin, while being taken to the Kannur Judicial Magistrate Court by the police on Monday.

Even sitting inside the police vehicle, they cried, while venting anger at the officials of the Motor Vehicles Department (MVD) for their “high-handedness”.

The brothers were arrested for allegedly obstructing RTO officials in discharging their duty.

Earlier, about 20 fans of the vloggers were also taken into custody by the police when they started doing live video recording of the commotion happening between the vloggers and officials.

Social media activists and users, even from the nearby districts, came in large numbers to the Kannur RTO office and the police station in support of the vloggers, making the whole episode an action-packed drama.

The vlogger brothers, who are popular on social media by their handle ‘E BULL JET’, has a vehicle named ‘Napoleon’ which has a huge fan following. Citing violation of rules, the vehicle was recently confiscated by the RTO.