I study in a National Institute of Importance in UP. There’s a cantonment area near my institute. A main road connecting my institute and a chauraha has a side bench where people often sit. The road is always busy because it connects the main city to a residential area near the institute.
My boyfriend and I were sitting on that bench peacefully and talking when two men on a scooty suddenly stopped right in front of us. Both of them were drunk and not in uniform. They immediately started asking for our IDs (Aadhaar) and our fathers’ phone numbers.
My boyfriend got scared and said we’re from the college and that he can show his college ID. After that one of them started calling us “terrorists” and “Pakistanis”.
I got offended and asked who they were and why they were asking for our identity details. I told them they had no right to ask us for Aadhaar or our parents’ numbers without even identifying themselves first.
Then the man started arguing that ATS is present in that area and that it’s a VVIP area and we are not allowed to sit on that bench because “it belongs to the army”. The funny thing is that this road literally connects to a village and civilians use it all the time.
I politely said that if civilians are not authorised to sit there then there should at least be a signboard saying so.
At this point I lost my temper because he was clearly misbehaving. I started confronting him and asking who exactly he was and why he was talking to us like this.
Then he suddenly started saying things like “Pulwama happened because of people like you.” Literally what? I asked him how exactly two college students sitting and talking on a bench are connected to Pulwama. I was in class 9 when that attack happened. I also told him that event probably has a much higher correlation with drunk people driving scooties than with two people chatting peacefully.
He also said things like “Aapke judge humari military se bade hain kya?”
The most concerning part was at the end. When I kept insisting that he was wrong and unnecessarily intimidating us, he suddenly told us to “wait there” and he' ll show up... before leaving on the scooty.
At that point I got genuinely scared and left with my boyfriend because I thought he might return with more people and the situation could turn violent.
The whole thing felt extremely bizarre. He was drunk. He wasn’t in uniform though from his haircut and the way he was talking about the army/security setup, I’m guessing he might have been some trainee or connected to the cantonment in some way.
I genuinely want to know:
Are civilians actually not allowed to sit near cantonment-adjacent roads even if there is no signboard/restriction?
Can random people claiming to be related to the army/security forces ask for Aadhaar and family details?
Was this actual security protocol or just harassment/power-tripping?
I’m open to the possibility that maybe there are rules I genuinely don’t know about but the entire interaction felt very wrong.