Keenan-Reuben recap? 11 beat up 3 with belt, spectators silent, don’t even inform Mumbai police
Two of the trio tried to escape on a bike and a chase followed ending in them crashing into a tempo, killing 1
Eleven men beat up three youngsters with a belt outside Oscar Hospital early Monday, even as passers-by continued to remain silent, with not even bothering to inform the police about it.
“He took off his belt and started hitting us. After he was done, his friends took turns to beat us,” Kiran Kharva, a friend of 18-year-old Nitesh Patel told police in a statement on Tuesday.
Kharva’s statement was recorded a day after Patel, along with him and Kailash Angar, 19, confronted Praful Ingawale, an ambulance driver, for allegedly harassing Patel’s fiance, outside the hospital in Kandivli.
Ingawale, who was with 10 of his friends, threatened Patel to break off his engagement as he was in love with her, police said.
“Ingawale’s friend Pankaj Saidhane then took off his belt and beat us up with it. He then handed over the belt to another person and he continued the same. This went on until everyone had beaten us with the belt”, Kharwa, 20, said.
According to Kharva, Saidane flung the belt towards a group of people watching the assault. He threatened them by saying, ‘If anyone came forward to rescue these boys, I will teach them a lesson,” said Kharva.
According to the police, Patel and Angar tried to escape on a bike, but their attackers also got on a bike to chase them. Near Charkop, Patel crashed into a tempo while trying to take a turn, He later succumbed to the injuries at Oscar Hospital itself while Angar, who was riding pillion, also sustained injuries,
The remaining nine accused stopped Kharwa from escaping, police said.
Five people were arrested on Tuesday on charges of culpable homicide while a sixth was arrested on Wednesday. The police are now looking for the remaining five.
The five were produced before a metropolitan court on Tuesday that remanded them in two weeks judicial custody.
Kharva, in his statement, said, “Nitesh (Patel) told Ingawale to stop harassing a woman who was working as a nurse at the same hospital. Patel told Ingawale that the woman was his fiance. However, Ingawale started arguing and gathered his friends.”
“One Mohammed and a Shahabuddin Khan got on another bike and chased Patel while the rest of them kept hitting me. The men wanted my friends’ addresses. When I told them I will not give them anything, they beat me up more. I somehow managed to flee around 3 am,” said Kharva.
After the accident, the police zeroed in on Kharva who told them about the fight.
‘Security guard of the hospital was part of the gang that beat up trio’
The Charkop police investigating a culpable-homicide case after 18-year-old Nitesh Patel died in a bike crash following a chase on Monday, have arrested six people in the case.
Five of them were arrested on Tuesday, while the sixth, a security guard of Oscar Hospital near where the fight that led to the chase broke out, was arrested on Wednesday.
According to the police, Rajendra Sarsar was part of the gang of 11 who beat up three people with a belt.
The police are now checking the CCTV footage from outside the hospital and also of the spot near Charkop where Patel crashed into a tempo, killing him. On Wednesday, a forensic team collected samples from the spots.
Meanwhile, the police found that the main accused, Praful Ingawale, had proposed to Patel’s fiancé two days before the incident.
The police had recorded the statement of Patel’s fiancé, a nurse at the hospital. In her statement to the police, she told officials that Ingawale, an ambulance driver, had proposed to her two days before the incident. The police said that she had rejected his advances several times in the past.
Patel, along with two of his friends, confronted Ingawale outside the hospital early on Monday asking him to stop harassing her. However, Ingawale told him that he loves her and instead warned Patel from coming between the two, police found. Ingawale then gathered his friends and proceeded to assault the three with a belt.
According to the police, Patel and the woman were engaged in October last year and they were planning to get married in 2018. Patel worked as a housekeeping staff at a popular confectionary company. He is survived by his parents, two brothers and a six-year-old sister.
Patel’s mother was sitting at her doorstep in Patilwadi in Charkop village.
“Whatever I say now will not bring my son back. This was not his age to die,” she said looking down and then at his other son. Outside the house, a condolence poster was strung with a picture of Nitesh. Patel’s mother was sitting at her doorstep in Patilwadi in Charkop village.
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