Auto driver beaten to death by fuel station staff over ₹5

Five arrested, booked for murder of 68-year-old Nalasopara resident

MUMBAI: A 68-year-old autorickshaw driver was beaten to death by employees of a Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) filling station in Borivli (East) after a fight over ₹5 on Tuesday.

The incident took place around 5.10pm when Ramdular Yadav, a resident of Nalasopara (West), went to fill CNG in his autorickshaw with his son, Santosh Yadav, 35. After filling gas for ₹205, Yadav handed a ₹500 note to a gas station employee, Santosh Jadhav, 34, and when the latter returned ₹290 instead of ₹295, the driver demanded the balance ₹5 before he moved his autorickshaw.

Jadhav, however, insisted that Yadav first move his autorickshaw out of the queue.

Yadav and Jadhav got into a verbal fight, after which the latter paid ₹5 to the driver, who moved his vehicle out of the queue, but the duo continued arguing.

As the fight escalated, Jadhav was joined in by four of his colleagues, and the five allegedly beat up Yadav and his son.

Yadav fell unconscious during the scuffle and was rushed to Shatabdi Hospital, where he was declared dead on arrival.

“Based on prima facie evidence and Santosh’s statement,

an FIR has been filed and the five accused have been arrested,” said Nitin Tadakhe, police inspector, crime.

The five men – Santosh Jadhav, 34, Sandeep Jadhav, 29, Santosh Shelar, 44, and Ravindra Mankumbre, 38, all residents of

Naigaon in Palghar, and Andheri resident Akshay Mankumbre, 20 – were booked under sections 143, 144 and 149 related to unlawful assembly, 302 (murder), 323(causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult) and 506 (criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and produced before a magistrate’s court on Wednesday. They have been remanded in police custody till February 29.

The police have sent Yadav’s body for post-mortem at Bhagwati Hospital to ascertain the cause of death.