ATHENS – Fury over the videotaped savage attack on a metro worker by two men angry he rebuked them for not wearing COVID-19 masks had prompted a search to get them.

In a strongly worded press release, the Civil Protection Ministry vow to find them to bring justice after the shocking video showed them repeatedly kicking the man who was down on the platform at the Omonia station.

They followed him off a metro car where he had told them to wear the masks and take their feet off the seats, reports said, the perpetrators waiting to get him until he was alone outside.

The response from the Justice Ministry was fast and furious, the statement saying that “two young men treated the Omonoia station manager like beasts. When told that they were not wearing a mask, they spat on him, insulted him and beat him horribly. He is in hospital.”

In ominous tones the statement added that, “They will be arrested. They will be brought to justice,” as outrage poured out when the video was shown on Greek TV stations, the assault coming during a second lockdown aimed at slowing COVID-19.

The incident occurred on the Red Line that serves the route from Anthoupoli to Omonoia, said Kathimerini, the attackers first verbally assailing the station chief and before punching him to the ground to kick him when he was down, toward his head.

The attackers fled while other metro employees called an ambulance and alerted the police.

STASY, the public company operating the metro, tram and electric railway, “unequivocally condemned the unprovoked attack”the management pledged to “assist in taking all necessary measures to prevent similar violent incidents.”