New Delhi: A 24-year-old migrant labourer was fatally wounded in Haryana’s Panipat on May 24 after a dispute over the skull-cap he was wearing turned violent. Police have said the crime did not have a communal angle.
The victim was identified as Firdaus Alam alias Asjad Babu. Firdaus, originally from Bihar’s Kishanganj, worked as a tailor at a factory in Panipat.
According to Asad, Firdaus’s brother, he had recently got married and was returning from his in-laws’ house with a friend, Shahnawaz, when they were intercepted by one Shishu Lala alias Narendra at around 8 pm. Narendra owns a grocery store near Flora Chowk in Panipat’s Sector 29. “He snatched my brother’s skull-cap and put it on as if to mock him,” said Asad.
“When my brother told him to return it, he threw it on the ground,” Asad added.
According to Asad, Firdaus did not fight back. “He gave an angry look to Narendra and asked him why he threw his skull-cap. This angered the shopkeeper who allegedly said, ‘How dare you talk to me like that?’,” Asad said.
Asad added that when Firdaus bent down to pick his skull-cap up, Narendra allegedly hit Firdaus’s head with a baton and mockingly asked if he liked it.
After the attack, Firdaus fell unconscious and Shahnawaz telephoned Asad in panic. Asad reached the spot and rushed him to a local government hospital from where he was referred to PGI (Post Graduate Institute) Rohtak. At Rohtak, Firdaus succumbed to his injuries.
When asked if he knew the attacker, Asad said, “I have been working here as a tailor for nine years. My brother only came two years ago. I don’t know too many people here, so how would Firdaus know the man?”
This story was originally published in thewire.in. Read the full story here.