Tourists get bail in Anjuna parking attendant’s death

Panaji: While granting bail to five tourists from Karnataka in the death of Sagar Naik,

a parking attendant

, a Mapusa court observed that the deceased and his associates were the aggressors.

“From a perusal of CCTV footage it appears more that the applicants (tourists) herein were defending themselves against the assault by the victim and his associates. The fact that the chronic heart condition of the deceased was precipitated by his assault on the applicants and their family members, cannot be held against the applicants,” the court held.

The court stated there was nothing in the say of the investigating officer to directly implicate any of the tourists in Naik’s death apart from the fact that they were involved in a scuffle with the deceased.

“I find that the footage corroborates the complaint of Manjula Subramanya, wherein she is seen pleading by holding the legs of one of the assailants, who were mercilessly beating her family members and the applicants herein with ribs, danda and sticks, slaps, fist blows and kicks,” the court held.

Merely because the postmortem report indicates that the cause of death of Naik was “acute myocardial infarction as a result of chronic occlusive coronary artery disease precipitated due to stimulation of the autonomic nervous system in a person with simple body surface injuries,” that cannot mean that the applicants had caused the death, the court stated.

Advocate Manguirish Usgaonkar, representing the tourists, submitted that they stopped their vehicle on the side of the road near the chapel on their way to

Anjuna

beach to check a diesel leak and while tightening the diesel pipe, a car driver started shouting at them to move their vehicle ahead when one of the tourists asked him to wait five minutes.

It was submitted to the court that the driver became furious and began assaulting one of the tourists, Varun, with a wooden stick and then with his screwdriver which he snatched from him. The public intervened and the car driver said he would “show them when they go to the parking area”.

At the parking area the man was there again and began assaulting them with a wooden stick. On seeing this incident, all of the tourists alighted from the vehicle. However, another 7 to 8 persons joined them and began assaulting the applicants with wooden sticks, slaps, kicks and fist blows. One of the women held the legs of the car driver pleading with him not to assault them, it was submitted to the court.