Parking row steamrolls, auto driver beaten to death

Two autorickshaw drivers were arrested by Borivli police for assaulting their colleague to death, with a rod, over a parking row last week. The deceased, Shafique Khan, 30, succumbed to his injuries on Wednesday.

The accused duo, Prakash Shinde, 30 and Sunil Bhosale, 32, had gone into hiding and were later nabbed from Osmanabad by Borivli police.

According to police, the incident occurred last week, on November 8, at an autorickshaw stand, when Khan was next in line to ply passengers from Gorai to Borivli station. Suddenly, Bhosale came in with his vehicle and parked in front of Khan’s threewheeler.

The duo began arguing, which escalated to another level altogether.

Shinde charged at Khan with an iron rod and in a bid to rescue, Khan was helped by another autorickshaw driver, Dayashankar Yadav but the accused duo, Shinde and Bhosale scared him and he fled from the spot.

Police were alerted about the incident, who rushed Khan to the civic-run Shatabdi Hospital.

Borivli Police initially registered a case of attempt to murder against the duo and began investigating the case.

They also recovered iron rods, chopper and knife from their auto-rickshaws.

Primary investigation revealed, a few months ago, Khan and his friends had beaten up Shinde over a trivial issue.

Shinde was in a mood to take revenge and called Bhosale from Osmanabad and the duo staged a scene to provoke Khan.

As events occurred, went as per their plan and the duo accused escaped from the scene after the assault.

A police team later traced Shinde and Bhosale to their hometown in Osmanabad and arrested both on Wednesday.

On the same day, Khan succumbed to his injuries and the duo was charged under relevant sections of the Indian Penal Code for murder (section 302).