Chhatrapati Sambhajinagar: A 25-year-old casual worker succumbed to grievous stab wounds to his neck and stomach after he and his friends intervened in an attack by seven men on their friend in front of Kannad City police station in the early hours of Sunday. The attack that prompted the victim and his friends to intervene to save their friend was a fallout from a decade-long dispute between two families, police said.
Police identified the deceased as Navid Sheikh Akram, a resident of Tilaknagar in Kannad town. Based on a complaint by Azhar Sheikh Noor (25), who was accompanying Navid and is an eyewitness, the Kannad City police registered a case of murder, rioting, unlawful assembly and attempt to murder against seven suspects.
“We have arrested one of the suspects, Mobin Yunus Shaikh (25), and have deployed teams to trace and arrest the remaining six named in the FIR,” Kannad City police inspector R B Sanap said. “Mobin too was injured as the attacker, who dealt knife blows, ended up hitting him too in the brawl,” the officer said.
Azhar stated in his complaint that their friend Parvez Khan Wahab Khan called Navid on phone around 12.30am on Sunday informing that he was seeking treatment at the Ghati hospital for injuries sustained in an assault by his uncle and others and his uncle’s relatives were standing outside the hospital. Parvez told Navid that he feared a further attack by his uncle’s relatives and asked Navid to reach the hospital along with their other friends to help him out of the situation.
The complaint stated that Azhar, Navid and two others reached the hospital at Kannad and brought Parvez to the Kannad City police station to lodge a complaint. After completing the formalities, they, along with some of Parvez’s relatives, were standing in front of the police station gate around 1am. The complainant stated that at this point, one of the attackers came from behind and hit Parvez on the head with an unidentified weapon. The other suspects soon joined this attacker in slapping and punching Parvez, prompting Navid, Azhar and two others to intervene, the complaint read.
At this point, one of the attackers pulled out a knife and attacked Navid on his neck and stomach, the complaint stated. Navid sustained excessive bleeding injuries and collapsed on the spot while one of the attackers, Mobin, too was injured, the complaint read. The attackers then fled from the scene, police said. Navid, who was bleeding profusely from his injuries, was rushed to a hospital in Kannad by his friends, where doctors declared him dead.
Speaking to TOI, complainant Azhar said, “Before anyone could understand what was happening, we were attacked. In the assault, we lost our friend.”
Inspector Sanap said preliminary investigations revealed that the roots of the violence lay in a bitter family feud. “Parvez runs a pharmacy store in Kannad, while his uncle is employed in Dubai. The two families have been at loggerheads for nearly a decade. Relatives have informed us that there were multiple clashes between them in the past few years,” the officer said.
