New Delhi: The Chhattisgarh Police has arrested two employees of a Raipur eatery on murder charges after they allegedly stabbed a man to death for feeding a stray dog from one of their plates.
The accused have been identified as Sagar Sahu, 24 and Pawan Sen, 35. The deceased was Shiv Prasad Dhurve, 35, a factory worker from Madhya Pradesh.
The accused were at the eatery on Monday evening when Dhurve arrived with his friends. The Raipur district police said in a statement that Sahu was eating at the time, but had gotten up to go to the kitchen, leaving his plate behind.
Dhurve then allegedly started feeding a stray dog from the same plate left behind by Sahu, who returned and confronted Dhurve. The two had a heated argument, police officers said, and then Dhurve and his friends were assaulted on the spot.
“Shiv Prasad Dhurve started feeding the dog from Sagar Sahu’s plate, prompting Sahu to ask why he was doing so. A drunk Shiv Prasad Dhurve argued with Sahu, telling him that he would keep doing so and dared him to do something about it. This led to a physical fight between them after which Dhurve left the dhaba with his two friends,” a Raipur rural district police spokesperson said.
However, Dhurve returned to the hotel with 5-6 more men, the spokesperson further said, adding that another argument ensued, which quickly turned violent as accused Sen and Sahu dragged Dhurve out of the hotel and stabbed him in the chest with a knife.
Dhurve was rushed to a hospital where he was declared dead on arrival Monday evening.
Originally from Madhya Pradesh’s Anuppur district, Dhurve worked as a crane operator and lived in a nearby village with his wife.
The post-mortem was delayed as the family could not be reached immediately. Later, as investigators reached out to Dhurve’s wife, and established the sequence of events, a case was lodged under sections 103 (murder), 351(2) (criminal intimidation) and 3(5) (common intention) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita.
In the complaint that formed the basis of the FIR, a police officer recorded that Dhurve’s wife said he had left home with his two friends. These friends then revealed that the three of them had gone to Ajay Sahu’s hotel in the Siltara area of Raipur, where Dhurve had a fight with Sagar and Pawan and was beaten up, following which they returned.
“After some time, Shiv Prasad Dhurve and his friends went to the hotel, where hotel employee Pawan Sen dragged Dhurve out of the hotel and stabbed him in the chest with a knife, causing a laceration. It was reported that blood oozed from his throat, Dhurve collapsed on the spot, and they (the friends) ran away in fear after Pawan Sen threatened to kill him,” the officer documented in his report.
The post-mortem revealed the use of a sharp-edged weapon, suggesting a homicide.
The report further said that according to eyewitnesses, Sen and Sahu assaulted Dhruve with a stick and a knife.
(Edited by Gitanjali Das)
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