Mumbai: Closed eatery leaves a bad taste in visitors’ mouth

Mumbai: The MIDC police on Tuesday arrested a group of hooligans for allegedly beating up several people outside the Western Express Highway (WEH) metro station in Andheri East.

According to the police, the incident happened on January 7, while the case was registered on Tuesday. The complainant in his statement said that he had gone for lunch with his brother and a couple of friends to a restaurant which was apparently closed.

The complainant enquired the reason for the closure as they had traveled a long distance to visit the place. The conversation took an ugly turn as heated words were exchanged and abuses hurled,” Senior Police Inspector Satish Gaikwad said.

“The argument was discontinued after the visitors decided to go to another eatery, but they were attacked by the waiters with sticks as they were leaving,” he added.

Even as bystanders started recording the fight on their mobile devices, none informed the police who got to know about it only after the complainant approached them on Tuesday.

The visitors are currently under medical care for injuries sustained in the scuffle, police said.

Meanwhile, the ones who attacked, the waiters, also claimed to be injured.

After registering the case, the police scanned videos which established that the waiters had initiated the fight. Four of them were arrested on Tuesday itself. The police also inquired with the hotel about the availability of bamboo sticks that were used by the suspects who were identified as Mr Vinod Yadav, 39, Mr Pramod Pujari, 30, Mr Dipak Kapurvan, 23, and Mr Arvind Chaursiya, 30. The police confiscated the weapons – bamboo sticks – used to attack the visitors during the crime by the accused – and presented it as evidence at the court along with the video footage.

“They were all remanded to judicial custody by the court,” added Gaikwad.