Pune: A 39-year-old software engineer was allegedly beaten to death by three men over parking of private tourist vehicles on the road in front of his bungalow in Lulla Nagar, Kondhwa. The incident took place on Friday night and Neval Bomi Battiwala, the victim, succumbed to his injuries in the wee hours of Saturday.
Pune city police have registered a case of murder and arrested the accused persons, who have been identified as Shriganesh Jaywantrao Raskar (31), Yogesh Dinu Kadve (22), both residents of Lulla Nagar, and Vikram Lakshman Bhombe (32) of Bibvewadi. Based on a complaint from police head constable Munnir Inamdar, an FIR against the accused persons has been registered at Kondhwa police station.
Battiwala earlier worked abroad and had returned to India two years back. He was unmarried and was residing with his mother in Sahani Sujan Park in Lulla Nagar. Currently, his mother had gone to Mumbai. His sister resides in Australia.
According to police, accused Raskar runs a business of tourist transport vehicles, while Bhombe and Kadve work for him as drivers. They used to park vehicles in front of Battiwala’s bungalow and this often led to quarrels between them. A few days back too, they had a fight over the issue.
On Friday at around 8 pm, when the accused parked their vehicles outside Battiwala’s bungalow, he objected and this led to an argument between them. The accused falsely claimed to be Regional Transport Officers (RTO). When Battiwala asked for their identity cards, the accused assaulted him with iron rods and also hit him with stones, before running away.
Battiwala was admitted to a nearby private hospital with head injuries. A police team reached the hospital and was recording his statement, but his condition deteriorated and he was shifted to intensive care unit (ICU). He succumbed to injuries at around 4 am on Saturday.
Police have charged the accused persons with offences under sections 302 (murder) and 34 (common intention) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
Senior Police Inspector Milind Gaikwad, in-charge of Kondhwa police station, told Sakal Times, “The accused used to park vehicles on the public road and not inside his bungalow. In the past, there have been quarrels between them, as deceased had objected to parking vehicles there. We will produce the accused before the court on Sunday. Further investigations are going on. But it seems the murder was not intentional.”
