Shopkeeper Attacked by Sword in Mumbai, Recorded on CCTV

MUMBAI: when he was attacked with a sword, security cameras inside his store caught the assailants and the customer who did heroic rescue of Rajneesh Singh Thakur in Mumbai.

Mr. Thakur, who is physically challenged, was in intensive care at the hospital for hours. Four people were arrested; Police are hunting two suspects.

Tuesday night, a group of six men stopped at the shop of Mr. Thakur, who sells mobile phones, for revenge because he had put posters in May in the Chembur warning that extortionists threatened shopkeepers to make regular payments Rs. Their 1,000. Who has not fallen in line was warned that his shop would be set on fire, the posters said. Mr. Thakur has asked people to contact him or his brother with information on the thugs. Mid-day.com reports that although some of the extortionists were arrested, were released after paying a fine.

Security cameras show the attacker entered the store with a sword hidden behind his back. Mr. Thakur then cut twice, injuring his hand and neck before a customer rescued him. The other five members of the gang took the car out.

According to police officials, for the past several months, a big gang of druggies used to go to nearly 200 shops along the P L Lokhande Marg in Chembur and threaten to attack them, break the glass of the shops and burn them down if they did not fork out money. The scared shop owners used to give them Rs. 1,000 to Rs. 1,500 each time.

Every success emboldened the druggies, who began to see this as a source of easy money and started doing it more often. "These druggies are the gundas of the area. They have a big gang, threaten everyone and demand money. They asked for hafta to keep us and our shops safe," said Manish Singh Thakur.

Fed up with the druggies' activities, Rajnish, whose showroom is also located on the same road, formed a group of shopkeepers, printed awareness messages with his and his brother's names and contact numbers and asked people to report the instances to them.
Baying for blood

Watch Video of Mumbai Shopkeeper Attacked Here:-

Since Rajnish's name figured on all the posters, the druggies decided to target him to take revenge. Manish said several attempts were made to assault Rajnish, but none had succeeded until Tuesday night.

On the fateful night, Rajnish was sitting on a chair on the counter, talking to a customer who had come to pay him money, when Akram Shaikh (28), one of the druggies, stormed in with the sword hidden behind his back. Shaikh was accompanied by five others, who were waiting for him in a car outside.



Shaikh attacked Rajnish twice, before the brave customer overpowered him. "Had it not been for the customer, my brother would not be alive today," said Manish. With the help of some other shopkeepers, the customer kept Shaikh in the showroom until the police showed up and arrested him. While Rajnish was rushed to the Kailash Jeevan Hospital in Govandi, Shaikh's other five accomplices made a run for it.



After arresting Shaikh, the Tilak Nagar police managed to track down and arrest three of his accomplices, while the other two are absconding. "The main accused, Shaikh, informed us that they had decided to take revenge by attacking the victim because he had formed an association and had united the shopkeepers.

We arrested Shaikh based on the CCTV footage and picked up three of his accomplices later. Two are still absconding," said senior police inspector Bhagwat Sonawane of Tilak Nagar police station.

The accused have been booked under Sections 307 (Attempt to murder), 148 (rioting, armed with deadly weapon) and other relevant section of the IPC. The four arrested accused were presented in court yesterday and remanded in police custody till August 14.



Manish said that he and the shopkeepers will not be cowed down. "This needs to be stopped, we should raise our voice against them, or else they will attack more people," he added.