Three held; youngsters rode bike onto footpath, demanded that Lt. Col. Manjali move out of way

Lieutenant Colonel Anup Joseph Manjali (36), a Kirti Chakra awardee, was allegedly assaulted by five youngsters in an incident of road rage in Malad (West) in the early hours of Sunday. He is being treated for a dislocated shoulder and injuries under his eye, and to the forehead and head, at a suburban hospital.

Lt. Col. Manjali, currently attached to the 12 Bihar regiment, was awarded the second highest peace time gallantry award in 2013 for eliminating three terrorists.

Three people have been arrested for the attack, which occurred a little after midnight on Saturday.

Senior police inspector Vijay Bane of the Bangur Nagar police station told The Hindu, “Three accused were arrested and produced in court on Sunday. The Army officer was standing on the footpath when the youngsters rode their motorcycles on the footpath and demanded that he move out of their way. This resulted in a skirmish and a little bit of pushing around. There are no other absconding accused. Two women were also present and were later allowed to go.”

Lt. Col. Manjali told The Hindu that five men attacked him while he was waiting on the footpath for his mother, who was to be dropped off by a relative after a family function.

“As I stood there, one of the guys came riding on the footpath with two women riding pillion, and demanded that I move out of his way. I stood my ground and he pushed me out of the way with his bike. One of the women got off the bike and started abusing and screaming at me. One of the men started hitting me with a helmet, and in seconds, two more bikes reached there and all of the guys started attacking me. I had raised neither my voice nor my hand at them.”

The police said the accused, Sagar Vinay Singh (21), Shaun Merrian D’Souza (25) and Khizara Abbas Hasan Zaidi (21), were booked under Sections 325, 324 and 34 of the Criminal Procedure Code read with the Indian Penal Code.

Lt. Col. Manjali’s mother, who reached the scene as her son was being attacked, said, “Even after the incident, the youngsters expressed no remorse. One of the women present at the scene boasted that she hailed from a top-notch legal family and was unconcerned about the case. At the police station, one of the parents of the two women even said she was aware of her daughter’s arrogance, as if it were a character trait of merit. What have we come to as a society?”

An officer attached to the Bangur Nagar police station claimed that the CCTV camera in the area was missing.

Lt. Col. Manjali was awarded the Kirti Chakra on Republic Day in 2013, for eliminating three terrorists who had sneaked into in Jammu and Kashmir in 2012. He was attached to the Rashtriya Rifles at the time.