When the securityman of an Uttar Pradesh politician allegedly winked at her, a young Agra resident, Sadhvi Pandey, climbed atop his Mercedes in protest and refused to come down till she had been handed an apology and Rs. 6,500 to pay for a mobile phone that she said was smashed by the gunner.

Dressed in pink salwar kameez, head covered with a dupatta, Sadhvi, who is in her 20s, drew huge crowds as she stood angrily on the bonnet of the expensive car.

In a video now gone viral, she is seen standing on the car - which belongs to Abhinav Sharma, a member of UP's ruling Samajwadi Party - and explaining to the sympathetic crowd what had happened. There are some reports that Sadhvi also yanked the party flag off the politician's car and smashed the windscreen, but the video which NDTV has does not show that. 

Sadhvi Pandey has alleged that she was on a scooter with her sister and they were waiting at a traffic signal when the gunner winked at her. When her sister tried to take a photograph, the man snatched her phone and smashed it the ground, she alleged.

That is when Sadhvi jumped on to the car and stood there for about half an hour in angry protest. "If lawmakers will indulge in these acts, what will the public do? We stopped the car to tell them of the gunner's action but instead of reprimanding him, they broke my sister's phone," she said. 

It is not clear whether Abhinav Sharma was in the car at the time. On video, a man in a white kurta pyjama is seen getting out of the car as crowds surround it, encouraging  Sadhvi and attempting to note the licence plate number.

The police arrived eventually and attempted to broker peace.

Abhinav Sharma had contested the last assembly elections in UP on a Samajwadi Party ticket.

- Manohar