How far can one go if children are denied ice-cream? A man in Mumbai suburb Vasai gave a shocking answer to this when he damaged a shop's entire ice cream stock after the owner refused to sell them dessert two hours after midnight.
The episode, which took late night ice cream craving to a whole new level, was captured by a CCTV camera installed next to the medical store in Vasai's Kaul Heritage City that also stocked ice cream, among other items.
In the footage from 2.11 am on December 19, a man is seen speaking to the shop owner from across the counter. Behind him stand a girl and a toddler, who appear to be his children.
It is not clear why they are out this late. It could be one of the reasons why the shop owner was reluctant to step out.
The man is seen holding what resembles a metal stand for a sanitiser bottle and his gestures indicate that he is threatening the shop owner.
The man then approaches the three ice-cream freezers kept outside Wellness Medical Store and asks the children to step aside. The kids, visibly dumbfounded by the escalation, are seen moving out of the footage as the man appears to be giving the shopkeeper one final warning. As he speaks, the metal frame is held high, waiting to come crashing down.
And then it does. At one point, the talks end and the man shatters the glass cover of the freezer with one blow, repeating the feat on the other two freezers. The man then throws the metal frame and walks away angrily as the footage ends.
With Mumbai temperatures hovering over the 20 degree Celsius mark, the cones, cups and bricks in the freezers wouldn't have lasted for long after the covers were smashed, indicating a huge loss for the shop owner.
Manikpur police have registered a case against the unidentified man and are looking for him.