Man held in Mumbai for smashing friend’s head with stone after drunken fight

The two daily wage labourers had a fight about sleeping space on the pavement near Dadar market

The police have arrested a daily wage labouror for allegedly smashing another labouror’s head with a paver block for hogging his sleeping space on the footpath near Dadar market.

The fight got ugly, and the accused picked up a loose paver block from the footpath and hit his friend on the head.

The police said that on November 8, they had found the body of a man identified as Sunil Punjabi, with head injuries. Investigations revealed that Punjabi was a resident of Kalyan and would often sleep on Dadar footpath after getting drunk.

“Many of these labourors spend everything they earn on alcohol, and have fixed groups with whom they drink. After drinking, they sleep on the footpath outside the shops in Dadar market, which is where we found Punjabi’s body,” said a police officer from Dadar police station, requesting anonymity. “There was a paver block near his body.”

Officials also discovered that on the night he was killed, he had been drinking with Shankar Nagvekar, 45, and that the duo fought over where Punjabi slept. “Nagvekar wanted the same place to sleep,” the officer said. The fight got ugly, and Nagvekar picked up a loose paver block from the footpath and hit Punjabi on his head. “We got a tip-off that Nagvekar was seen near Kabutar Khana in Dadar, and we intercepted and arrested him,” said Divakar Shelke, senior police inspector of Dadar police station.