Crowd at Mumbai’s Inorbit Mall in Malad witnessed a massive ruck on Sunday evening after cricketer Vinod Kambli and his wife Andrea had an ugly verbal showdown with music composer Ankit Tiwari and father RK Tiwari. Kambli and his wife had alleged that Tiwari’s father ‘touched her inappropriately’, brushing his hand against Andrea. The father-son duo, meanwhile, claimed that the couple abused them and punched them, with Andrea taking out her sandal to hit the 59-year-old.
Kambli quoted in Mumbai Mirror, “We were at the Game Zone in the mall around 3 pm when my wife caught hold of an old man’s hand. He had deliberately brushed his hand against her and when she caught him in the act, he pushed her away. Minutes later when we were at the food court, two men, who we assume were the man’s sons, tried to attack my wife. When I told them to back off, they told me, you don’t know who we are.”
Meanwhile, Kambli’s wife claimed that the man took “advantage of the crowds” and touched her “inappropriately”.
“I was playing with my children when this guy took the opportunity to rub his hand against me. Maybe he thought nothing would happen because it was crowded. When I caught his hand, I was surprised to see this old man. He appeared embarrassed because I had caught him red-handed. He appeared scared, and said something in Hindi, on the lines that ‘I cannot do something like this’,” Andrea said.
However, the composer who was also present at the mall with parents, wife and daughter denied the allegations saying, “My father, a retired bank employee, had accompanied my daughter to the Game Zone. My father told me he spotted Vinod Kambli there, and as he was walking past a woman, he blacked out.”
“My father was disoriented after the attack. He couldn’t believe he had been punched, and that a woman was screaming, accusing him of brushing his hand against her. I asked my father to identify the woman, and we realised she was Kambli’s wife,” said Tiwari before adding, “I told them I wanted to speak with them, but they pushed me and hurled abuses. Kambli’s wife removed her sandal and threatened to hit me with it.”
Tiwari claimed that Kambli was abusing loudly and he and his wife, Andrea, pushed him and when someone tried to record the incident, he threatened the person concerned.
“He was abusing loudly, cursing everyone around. I asked him to speak to me politely, but he kept pushing me. His wife pushed me too. When I tried calling up the police, he snatched my phone. He even chased a woman to make sure she deleted the video recording from her phone,” Tiwari said.