A Navy officer in the rank of Lieutenant Commander has been booked on charges of assaulting a police head constable after they both allegedly got into a fistfight on Tuesday night near a tea shop at Triplicane.

Police said the Navy officer, identified as Lieutenant Commander Ashutosh, was having tea and was smoking along with three others near a tea shop on Anna Salai around midnight when a patrol team asked the shopkeeper to close down the shop. The police team had also asked the four to move away from the spot, to which Ashutosh is believed to have refused and passed a few comments in Hindi. Following this, it is believed that head constable Dinesh Kumar and Ashutosh entered into a fistfight and the police took all four to the Triplicane police station.

Police said only during the enquiry at the police station, they found that all four were serving in the Navy. All four were said to be posted at Kochi and were in Chennai for the last few days. Based on the complaint filed by Dinesh Kumar, Ashutosh has been booked and further investigations are on.