26-yr-old mistaken for thief, beaten to death

The police said that four members of the housing society had mistaken the victim for a mobile phone thief, tied him up with a rope, kicked him, and assaulted him with a bamboo stick

MUMBAI: A 26-year-old man was allegedly beaten to death on Saturday night by staff members and labourers working at a housing society in Goregaon, suspecting him to be a mobile thief. The police have arrested the four accused and registered a case of murder against them.

Arrested computer hacker and cyber criminal with handcuffs, close up of hands (Getty Images/iStockphoto)

The Goregaon police have identified the victim as Harshal Parmer, who lives with his parents Suvarna Parmer and Ramsingh Parmers, a lifeguard, in Motilal Nagar, Goregaon. On Saturday night, Harshal told his mother he was going out for drinks. When she awoke the next morning, worried since her son had still not returned, she got a call from the police informing her that Harshal had been assaulted at the Raj Pantheon Housing Society in Subhash Nagar, Goregaon West.

Pappu Yadav, the watchman of the Raj Pantheon Housing Society told the police that around 3am four thieves had entered the society and stolen mobile phones of staff working at the under-construction building. Yadav alleged that Harshal was one of the thieves. The police said that four members of the housing society, Salman Khan, Isamulla Khan, Gautam Chamar and Rajeev Gupta, had caught Harshal, tied him up with a rope, kicked him, and assaulted him with a bamboo stick. Yadav told the police that when he tried to stop them, they told him not to interfere.

An officer of the Goregaon police said, “We have registered a case against the accused under sections 103 (murder) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, and arrested all of them.” The police are yet to confirm whether Harshal was indeed part of the thieves that tried to steal the construction worker’s phones.