Selfie row and baseball bat attack; Prithvi Shaw in a late-night brawl

The Oshiwara police have arrested Gill and booked seven others for allegedly trying to intimidate Shaw by damaging his car and threatening to implicate him in a false case, after he refused to pose for a selfie with some of them

Mumbai Demands for selfies led to a scuffle involving cricketer Prithvi Shaw, social media influencer Sapna Gill and seven others outside a five-star hotel in the early hours of Thursday.

Selfie row and baseball bat attack; Prithvi Shaw in a late-night brawl

The Oshiwara police have arrested Gill and booked seven others for allegedly trying to intimidate Shaw by damaging his car and threatening to implicate him in a false case, after he refused to pose for a selfie with some of them.

Police officials said that Gill was called to the police station for inquiries on Thursday afternoon. After preliminary inquiries established her alleged involvement in the offence, she was placed under arrest. The police are still looking for the other accused in the case.

However, Gill’s advocate has claimed that his client was a fan of Shaw and just wanted a selfie with him but the cricketer was drunk and misbehaved with her.

According to the Oshiwara police, the row started at the Sahara Star hotel in Santacruz at around 1 am on Wednesday. Shaw, and his flat-mate Ashish Yadav, had gone to the hotel to have dinner when some of the accused approached them.

“One of the accused asked for a selfie with Shaw, to which he agreed. However, the man kept coming back for more pictures and started misbehaving when the cricketer refused. Subsequently, the hotel manager asked the man to leave the premises. When we came out, the man was standing outside with a baseball bat. Shaw got into our car and the man hit the front windshield hard, shattering it,” Yadav said in his statement to the police.

Officials said that Yadav, in order to avoid any more trouble, got Shaw out of his car and into his friend’s BMW. Subsequently, Yadav, his driver and two other friends got into the damaged car and were driving towards Jogeshwari when he noticed a car and three motorcycles following them.

At around 4 am, when they were taking a U-turn on the Link Road near the Lotus Petrol Pump, a group of seven men and a woman, allegedly attacked them again, breaking the rear windshield of the already damaged car, the police said.

Yadav then sped to Oshiwara police station, where the accused allegedly threatened to implicate them in a made-up case unless he paid up ₹50,000. However, by this time, personnel from the police station had rushed out to investigate, and Shaw had also reached there.

The police dispersed everyone, and Yadav, subsequently obtained details of two of the accused from the hotel. He reached the police station to lodge a complaint against them.

“We have registered an offence of unlawful assembly, rioting with deadly weapons, extortion and criminal intimidation under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code and are probing the matter,” said an officer with the Oshiwara police.

However, advocate Ali Kaashif Khan Deshmukh, who is representing Gill, said that his client has been falsely implicated.

“Sapna was a huge fan of Shaw’s and wanted a selfie with him, but he was drunk. He abused her and hit her, and we have photos of her injured arm. He also arranged for goons to attack her and now the same goons are being shown as Sapna’s accomplices and she, too, has been booked. It is a misuse of power and position,” alleged Deshmukh.

Reacting to Deshmukh’s allegations, deputy commissioner of police Anil Paraskar, Zone IX said, “If there has indeed been such an incident, the victim should have given a formal complaint to the police station. No such complaint has been received so far.”

HT tried to get a comment from Shaw but he did not respond to calls and messages.