Gurugram: A dispute over garbage and cow dung dumped outside a house in Sector 67A in Gurugram turned violent late Thursday night, with a group of men allegedly linked to a BJP councillor thrashed the joint secretary of the residents’ welfare association and his wife with sticks and iron rods on the street outside their home.
The victims, Prayag Varshney and his wife Shalini Gupta, both 34, residents of the posh Ansal Versalia society, H block, were rushed to Civil Hospital Sector 10 in the early hours of Friday and medically examined around 2 am, according to medico-legal records reviewed by ThePrint.
According to a written complaint Prayag has filed with the Sector 65 police station, the trouble began around 10 pm Thursday when he and his wife objected to a young man dumping garbage near their gate.
The complaint states that a man called Manish Harsana, husband of ward 15 councillor Bharti, arrived at the spot with seven to eight others. What began as an argument escalated within minutes, the complaint alleges, into an assault in which the group surrounded the couple, slapped and punched them, and struck them with sticks even as they tried to run.
“I, on behalf of the society members, had objected to loud music at a Kawariyas event late Wednesday night just close to our homes. Thursday night at about 10 pm, I, along with my wife, was on a stroll when I noticed and objected to dumping of garbage close to our gate. However, the BJP councillor’s husband and others charged at us with sticks and fists,” Prayag told ThePrint Friday over the phone.
The complaint further alleges that around 10 more men, including some women from the neighbourhood, joined in soon after, and that RWA secretary Prayag and his wife were chased down the street and beaten on the head, hands and legs before other residents intervened and separated the two sides.
Speaking to ThePrint, Harsana denied the version of events, saying he too had called the police emergency number to lodge a complaint, and alleged that it was Prayag and his wife who used abusive language and turned violent first. The police say they have not received any complaint from Harsana.
CCTV footage, however, shows Harsana thrashing Varshney in the middle of the verbal argument, and Varshney then being chased and thrown to the ground.
Sector 65 SHO Rambir Singh confirmed that police had received a complaint from Prayag and had registered an FIR. “We have got the couple medically examined,” Singh told ThePrint.
The FIR has been registered under sections 115 (voluntarily causing hurt), 190 (unlawful assembly), 191(3) (rioting with a deadly weapon), 351(2) (criminal intimidation) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita, 2023.
Extensive injuries
Medico-legal reports from Civil Hospital Sector 10, dated 31 July, list multiple injuries on both victims, all classified as blunt-force trauma sustained within 12 hours of examination.
RWA secretary Prayag’s injuries are extensive. Doctors recorded an abrasion on his left elbow, pain in the chest requiring an X-ray and surgical opinion, pain in the left flank, and swelling over the left temporal region of the head for which a CT scan and surgical opinion were advised. He also had an abrasion on his left knee and multiple minor abrasions on his left foot.
Shalini Gupta was found to have pain and swelling across her back, for which an orthopaedic consultation was advised, along with pain in her left elbow.
Both medico-legal reports categorise the nature of the injuries as “kept under observation” pending further clinical assessment.
Police said the matter is under investigation and that action will be taken against whoever is found responsible once the probe is complete.
(Edited by Viny Mishra)
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