Mumbai: Ex-army officer's son attacked in bar

MUMBAI: The college-going son of a decorated former army officer was seriously injured after his throat was slashed with a broken liquor bottle by a group of men at a Bandra restobar early on Saturday. The Bandra police have arrested three people on charges of attempt to commit murder. The family of the victim, Gurnihal Singh, said that there are more people involved in the crime and they need to be tracked down.
Gurnihal (20) is the son of Shaurya Chakra awardee Captain (retd) Bikramjit Singh and is studying business administration. The incident took place late on Friday when Gurnihal was at a party at a bar in Bandra Reclamation on the invitation of a friend. He and friends later took to the dance floor. Around 12.30am, an argument broke out between Gurnihal’s friend, Saksham Jatiya, and an unknown young man. Jatiya had asked the man why he had pushed him. The man replied with a volley of expletives and Gurnihal and another friend intervened to broker peace.
According to the FIR, the man told Jatiya and his friends to come out of the establishment so that he could teach them a lesson. Shortly, two others joined the man and began beating up Jatiya and his friends. One of the men smashed a liquor bottle and slashed Gurnihal’s throat with it. As Gurnihal started to bleed, his friends immediately took him to Lilavati Hospital.
“My son was administered around 15 to 16 stitches on his throat externally besides several internal stitches in a surgery on Saturday. He has also hurt his face. He was very fortunate as the attack could have been fatal,” said Captain Singh. He added that the police had recovered video clips where the incident had been captured. “There were eight to nine men in the other group. Youngsters may get into a conflict sometimes but attacking someone’s vital organs with a glass bottle in a restobar in the presence of bouncers smacks of criminal elements,” Singh added.
“We have arrested three of the accused who are locals from Bandra. We are verifying if they have past criminal records. Our team will go through video clips of the incident and probe if there were others responsible for the attack and who are they,” said senior inspector Girish Anavkar, Bandra police. The accused have been identified as Fardeen Sayyed (19), Musheq Qureshi and Ahmed Memon.