Pune: An externed criminal succumbed to grievous injuries he suffered in a brawl over bill payment with the staffers of a restaurant-cum-bar near Navale bridge around 12.30am on Thursday, after he violated his two-year externment order barely a month after it was served on him. Police identified the deceased as Hanumant alias Gotya Dattatraya Shejwal (33).
He was externed on July 27 from Pune city, Pimpri Chinchwad and rural areas of the district. Ganesh Ashok Kulkarni, one of the associates of the bar's staffers, was hit on the head with a beer bottle and a steel jar. He was admitted to the ICU of a private hospital.
His condition was reported as stable, the Sinhagad Road police said. He is a friend of one of the bar managers. The bar managers — Biplab Sarkar (35) and Vikas Murkute (30) — were arrested early Friday morning.
The police filed a case against Kulkarni on charges of murder and other offences. "A city court ordered custodial remand of Sarkar and Murkute till Aug 26. We will arrest Kulkarni once he is discharged from hospital," senior inspector Anandrao Khobre said.
In another case related to the incident, the police arrested two friends of Shejwal, who attacked Kulkarni, on the charge of causing grievous hurt, Khobre said. Late Thursday night, Shejwal and his three aides had dinner at the Classic Family Restaurant & Bar near Navale bridge. A dispute started between him and the bar staffers over the payment of Rs-1,200 bill and it soon escalated into a brawl as the men from either side attacked each other, the police said.
The incident exposed the futility of preventive actions like externment orders, regularly violated by criminals, said lawyers and activists. The purpose of externment is to ensure that the criminal is kept away from his area of influence for a substantial period so that he finds it difficult to indulge in crimes in the same area after serving the term. As of now, the police only file cases against criminals and refer the same to courts whenever a violation of externment order comes to the fore.
Deputy commissioner of police (zone III) Sambhaji Kadam, who had passed the order externing Shejwal, told TOI, "Our teams had twice visited Shejwal's residence before the brawl to ensure that he had not breached his externment terms. We had moved him to a place in Beed district for serving the externment period. He was not supposed to enter the city without prior permission from the externing authority.
Yet, he violated the terms. We are collecting information to establish what made him violate the externment order." Kadam said the police were focusing on periodical visits to the residences of criminals served with externment orders.
"If we come across any violation, we file a separate case against such criminals under Section 142 of the Maharashtra Police Act," he added..
