Pedestrian protests rash driving, beaten to death in Pune

PUNE: A pedestrian succumbed to severe head injury when a man assaulted him with a stone during a quarrel after the motorcycle he was riding on with another person hit the victim along Magarpatta-Mundhwa road around 7.30pm on Tuesday.
The Mundhwa police later arrested the duo, Sunil Pujari (21), a karate champion from Ghorpadi, and Pratik Gavhane (21), a criminal on police records, on murder charge. The victim, Ashok Shankar Rao (30) of Mundhwa, did small-time jobs.
Senior inspector Bramhanand Naikwadi on Wednesday said, "The two men were speeding alongside the road affected by a traffic snarl and dashed the pedestrian."
The officer said, "The pedestrian reacted angrily and abused them. This led to a quarrel and it soon turned physical. The duo on the bike abused and thrashed the victim. One of them hit him with a stone on the head."
The officer said, "The victim became unconscious. He was rushed to a private hospital and was later shifted to the Sassoon General Hospital, but he was proclaimed dead on arrival. The hospital in its advance post-mortem report certified internal head injury as the cause of his death."
Naikwadi said, "Rao was on way home. His brother, Sagar Rao, a housekeeping staffer, was on way to work when he witnessed a sizeable crowd and saw the two men without helmets speeding away on a bike. Sagar saw his motionless brother and shared the registration number of the bike with the police."
The senior inspector said, "There are three eyewitnesses to the incident. We checked CCTV cameras' footage, established the routes used by the bikers and took them into custody for questioning."
He said, "We have written numerous letters to PMC (Pune Municipal Corpration) to widen the road stretch between Magarpatta and Mundhwa to ease traffic congestion and prevent accidents because there are no pavements, and pedestrians are forced to walk on the carriageway at peak hours. Till date, nothing has happened."