Vigilante water cannon crew deals with public urination

Public urination is a big problem in India – but some enterprising masked heroes are taking matters into their own hands.

The charmingly-named "The Pissing Tanker" has gone viral both within India and on the wider world wide web, as it hunts down public urination offenders and gives them a taste of their own medicine - just with a high-powered water cannon.

Of course, one could question the legality of blasting people with a water cannon in the streets. And we'd also really love to know how one acquires a gigantic tanker with a high-powered fireman's hose.

A feature article on this very topic, published by the BBC in 2012, argued in part that a lack of usable clean toilets in Calcutta (and elsewhere in India) is the root of the problem, and that there's often no alternative.

The activists featured are masked to protect their identity, and the video itself was uploaded to a new, unpopulated YouTube channel merely titled "The Clean Indian", with no indication of who is behind the video - or why.

With such gaps in the story and the high production values of the video and the vehicle itself, some have speculated the clip is staged by sanitation activists to raise awareness - though perhaps that's no bad thing.