Man assaults neighbour and her infant with axe

Navi Mumbai: Police have booked a man for grievously injuring an infant and his mother by assaulting them with an axe and an iron rod

Navi Mumbai: Police have booked a man for grievously injuring an infant and his mother by assaulting them with an axe and an iron rod. The accused, 50-year-old Raju Satta, is absconding.

Man assaults neighbour and her infant with axe

The incident occurred on Thursday evening in Sector 8, Belapur, when Satta and his neighbour, Anjali Nitin Khandare aka Anjali Usman Shaikh, 37, got into an argument. Anjali’s elder son, 2, defecated on a common pathway in the area. Satta reprimanded the child, who began crying. Anjali asked the man who the necessity was to scold when she had already cleaned the area.

“She asked him not to get involved in household matters and to get his wife to talk instead. At this, he left, and we thought he went to get his wife. But he returned a few minutes later with an iron rod and an axe and began hitting my wife,” said Usman Shaikh, Anjali’s husband and a loader by profession at the APMC fruit market.

At the time of the assault, Anjali was carrying her younger son, Affnan Shaikh. To shield the child from getting hurt, she ran outside the house. The man continued assaulting her with the rod and the axe. “I too ran behind the man to stop him from assaulting them. He bit me and tried to attack me with the axe,” continued Usman. Neighbours who witnessed the attack alerted the police.

The infant sustained several injuries to the head. He was admitted to DY Patil Hospital in Nerul to undergo major surgery. Usman said that his child has several stitches from his head to nose, and the hospital bills make him tense. He added that Satta had earlier attacked Anjali over a trivial issue which was solved after the neighbours intervened.

“The accused is most likely hiding on the Belapur hill, and we are searching for him. He will soon be arrested,” said the senior police inspector Bhaskar Kokare of the NRI Coastal Police in Navi Mumbai.

An FIR was registered case against Satta under sections 109 (attempt to murder), 117 (voluntarily causing grievous hurt) and 118 (voluntary causing hurt by means of weapons), 116 (grievous hurt) of Bhartiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS).