Two men beaten, their car torched over minor accident

A 28-year-old man and his friend were brutally assaulted and their car set ablaze, in a suspected case of road rage triggered by personal enmity. HT reports.

A 28-year-old man and his friend were brutally assaulted and their car set ablaze, in a suspected case of road rage triggered by personal enmity.

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The incident occurred in southeast Delhi's Jamia Nagar in the early hours on Saturday. The two men — identified as Firoz Alam and Surender — were beaten within an inch of their lives less than hundred metres away from the Jamia Nagar Police Station. The assailants, numbered around a dozen, then set ablaze Firoz's Tata Safari car and also torched an MCD bulldozer.

Firoz and Surender were on their way to Noida when their car accidentally brushed past a speeding Scorpio car, which was trying to overtake them at Jamia Nagar's Okhla Head at 12.38am.

"At the moment, it seems like a case of road rage. A case of causing mischief by fire and damaging public property was registered after local people, who witnessed the episode, called the control room and stated that a Safari and an MCD-owned JCB parked next to it were set on fire after a clash between two groups," said Ajay Chaudhary, Additional CP (Southeast).

"There were four or five of them in the car. They stopped us and pulled us out of the car and started beating us. Soon, eight more men joined them. I ran to the police station for help but they didn't even let me in," claimed Firoz.

The police, however, pointed out that Alam had changed his statement several times and said it might be a case of personal enmity.

A senior police officer said, “He has been making contradictory claims about the incident. Now he has claimed that he could identify one of the persons who assaulted him and his friend on Friday night. If that is the case, then it is a clear case of personal enmity.”