A 53-year-old man died of brain hemorrhage on Friday, four days after he was punched by a man who had been stalking his daughter, an 18-year-old student of Panvel college, for over a year.

mumbaimirror

Sadashiv Kanchan collapsed after being hit by Avishek Bhattacharya on a busy road in Poynad town of Raigad district on November 14, when he confronted him for harassing his daughter. Kanchan never regained consciousness and was declared dead on Friday at Apollo Hospital in Nerul in Navi Mumbai.

Avishek, 25, who was employed as a mechanical engineer in Libya till two months ago, stalked Kanchan's daughter for a year-and-half online when he was in Libya. Though she asked him to lay off and changed her phone number, he continued stalking her, often tapping her friends for her whereabouts.

When Avishek, who was the Kanchans' neighbour in Poynad, returned from Libya he began following her to college and back home every day.

He did not relent even after her father took up the matter with his parents.

The girl's father had decided to approach the police when he spotted Avishek in the town on the evening of November 14 and decided to warn him one last time. Avishek, however, attacked him viciously, punching him repeatedly in the head. A neighbour, who was witness to the attack, called the girl and her mother and helped them carry Kanchan to a primary health centre. As his condition worsened, Kanchan was moved to the Alibaug Government Hospital and later to Apollo hospital in Nerul.

The girl, her parents' only child, on Saturday said she is doing everything to pursue the case despite her mom being in shock. "I am torn between the need to stay home with my mom and the desire to make sure that Avishek is arrested and punished. We were a happy family. He has destroyed everything," she told this correspondent over the phone from her home.

mumbaimirror

She had celebrated her 18th birthday just a day before her father was declared dead.

"I was a minor when he started stalking me. My father did everything he could to protect me and eventually gave up his life," she said. "Do carry my father's picture alongside Avishek's with your report. I want the world to know what he has done. He must face the consequences of his actions," she said.

Avishek was detained by the Poynad police on Saturday and booked for and will be produced in a local court on Monday. "We are recording his statement. We have booked him for causing grevious injury. We will also book him for culpable homicide," said Assistant Police Inspector Dharmaraj Sonke.