MUMBAI: A 29-year-old man has been arrested on charges of hitting a man with a steel rod, pulling out an air pistol and threatening to kill the complainant and his friend, who were riding a scooter, in a road rage incident at Antop Hill on Monday evening.
Complainant Deepak Dhilod, 29, and his friend Naveen Duglaj, 28, were passing through Antop Hill on a scooter around 9.15pm. They were on their way to Dadar to catch a movie. Suddenly a car overtook them dangerously. They stopped it and asked the driver why he was being rash. A heated argument ensued and Nitin Arora, a senior manager with an event management company, threatened them, Dhilod told the police.
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Although Union transport minister Nitin Gadkari has highlighted that road rage cases are rising, little has been done to upgrade the law and regulations. For one, road rage isn’t a recognisable offence in the Motor Vehicles Act; depending on the nature of injuries, an offender is booked under IPC sections. Prospective Indian drivers are not put through psychological testing, as in some countries. It is time road rage is given the attention it deserves.
"Arora was driving the car. His wife was also in the car. The complainant said they wanted to enquire why he was driving in such a rash manner that the car could have knocked them down. Arora allegedly took out a rod and hit the complainant. The accused pulled out an airgun next and held it to Duglaj's chest and threatened to kill them," said police.
People gathered as the fracas continued. In a video that went viral, Arora could be seen holding the air pistol in one hand and a rod in the other. His wife is seen trying to calm him down.
After the incident, the complainant approached the police and later went to Sion hospital for a medical examination. Dhilod works in Mahim as a patient caretaker.
A police team brought Arora to the police station and an FIR was registered against him. Arora has been booked under sections 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons or means), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) and 506 II (punishment for criminal intimidation) of the IPC. The police produced Arora before a metropolitan court which granted him cash bail of Rs 7,000.
"We have seized the airgun and steel rod. We are probing further," said senior inspector Nasir Kulkarni of the Antop Hill police.