A case was registered against Uttar Pradesh Ranji cricket team captain Mohammad Kaif on Thursday for allegedly roughing up a press photographer who tried to take his picture when he was coming out of a cinema hall in Chandigarh.

The former India cricketer was emerging out of the Picadilly theatre after watching a show of the Shah Rukh [Images] Khan-starrer Om Shanti Om last night when the lensman of a Hindi daily tried to take his snaps. An angry Kaif allegedly manhandled the photographer and also got into a scuffle with journalists who tried to intervene, eyewitnesses and journalists at the spot said.

Agitated media persons then picketed the Sector 34 police station where the cinema hall is situated and later assembled outside the hotel where Kaif and his teammates were putting up, demanding that a case of assault be registered against the cricketer.

When Kaif did not apologise, the media persons marched to the official residence of Chandigarh's Home Secretary Krishan Mohan, demanding that an FIR be registered against the cricketer.

They demanded that another cricketer, Praveen Kumar, who too had allegedly misbehaved with some media persons outside the hotel where the UP team was putting up, be booked along with Kaif.

Following the high drama outside the Home Secretary's residence, Senior Superintendent of Police S S Srivastava arrived at Sector 17 police station past midnight. Relenting to media pressure, he said an FIR had been lodged under various sections of Indian Penal Code against Kaif.