Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Mar 13: A scientist of repute, the 39-year old Dr Abhishek Swarnkar, who recently returned from Switzerland and joined the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER) in Mohali, died after being hit by his neighbour following a dispute over parking his two-wheeler on Thursday.
The scientist, who hailed from Dhanbad in Jharkahnd and was living in a rented house in sector 67 in Mohali with his parents, was attacked by his neighbour Monty after he warned the accused that he would file a complaint against him. Shouting “Tu complain karega?”, the accused Monty pushed the scientist to the ground and punched him. Dr Swarnkar, who had recently undergone a kidney transplant of a kidney donated by his sister and was on dialysis, collapsed on the spot and died.
Dr Swarnkar was a distinguished scientist with his work featuring in international journals. He had worked in the US, Switzerland and Germany and recently returned to India and joined IISER as a project scientist. IISER expressed deep sorrow over his death and said, “We have lost a brilliant mind. Such an act of violence is unacceptable and strict action should be taken against the accused.”
A CCTV camera shows some local residents, Monty among them, standing near his bike. Abhishek then walks to the two-wheeler and starts removing it. An argument follows and Monty pushes Dr Swarnkar to the ground and starts hitting him. Their families intervene and pull Monty away. Dr Swarnkar is seen on the ground before other neighbours step out of their homes.
An eyewitness said Dr Swarnkar had been parking his bike there for a long time. “What happened in the past two days that there was issue? Monty and his mother had an altercation with him and Monty pushed him,” she said. It is learnt that the neighbourhood is witnessing a tussle between tenants and homeowners over parking. The tenants have been complaining that they have no space to park their vehicles and homeowners claim tenants are not entitled to reserve parking spaces.
Police have registered a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder. They said the accused, Monty, is on the run and raids are being conducted to arrest him. Police are also tracking Monty’s phone to track him down.
The deceased scientist’s mother Malti Devi narrated the harrowing events on Tuesday night when she lost her son to a mindless brawl. Accusing Monty and his family of harassing them over parking, she said, “They regularly bothered us, don’t park here, don’t park there. He (Abhishek) returned from IISER (that night) and parked his bike. They asked him to remove it and there was an argument. My son came upstairs. And they shouted, ‘We will blow up the bike’. I told them, ‘It is in front of you, blow it up’. My son got agitated. My husband was downstairs and was talking to them. My son went downstairs. He moved his bike to show them how difficult it would be to take it out if he parked where they wanted him to,” the elderly woman said.
Malti Devi said they had been staying in the neighbourhood in Mohali’s Sector 67 since December 2023 and the accused Monty lived next door. “We did not know the system then, that people park right outside their homes. My son kept moving his bike from one spot to another as some or the other person asked him to. We felt harassed that no matter where the bike was parked, someone had a problem,” she said.
On Tuesday night, Dr Swarnkar told Monty and his family members that he would complain about their constant harassment over parking. “He (Monty) started shouting, ‘Tu complain karega?’ and pushed him hard. My son was a patient. We took him to the hospital. They said he had died,” Malti Devi said. Asked if the scientist had filed any police complaint regarding the harassment he faced over parking his bike, his mother said, “We lived on rent, we did not want a brawl. We had been ignoring it. They asked him to move the bike, he kept moving it. It was a bike, and it was not their area. Still, they had a problem. There was a hole, how can someone keep the bike there?”
The scientist’s tragic death has yet again put the spotlight on how parking disputes in major cities are turning violent. Earlier, videos of neighbours fighting over parking spaces in Delhi and other major cities have gone viral.
