Rajkot: A 56-year-old auto-rickshaw driver died in the city after being brutally assaulted with an iron pipe by three men following an altercation over staring, police said on Saturday.The incident took place around 1 am near a paan shop beneath Khwaja Apartment in Rajkot. The deceased has been identified as Iqbal Ibrahim (56).According to the FIR lodged at Bhaktinagar police station by the victim’s 32-year-old son, Sohil, the trouble began on Friday night when Iqbal had engaged in a heated verbal spat in Khwaja Chowk with a local resident named Danish Aminbhai after the two exchanged staredowns. Danish accused Iqbal of staring at him and picked up a fight. Following the argument, Iqbal phoned his son to mention the confrontation.Around 1 am on Saturday, while Iqbal was sitting near the paan shop, Danish along with two others — Sufiyan Arab and Riyaz — confronted him. Harbouring a grudge over the earlier dispute, Danish began hurling abuses before striking Iqbal on the chest with an iron pipe. The pipe was then used by Riyaz and Sufiyan to beat him across his body and shoulders. When he collapsed, the trio repeatedly kicked and punched him, rendering him unconscious.Alerted by a phone call from an eyewitness friend, the victim’s son rushed to the scene to find a crowd gathered and his father lying unresponsive. Iqbal was rushed to Madhuram Hospital on Dhebar Road, where doctors found no pulse and advised moving him to the civil hospital. The emergency room physicians declared him dead on arrival.Bhaktinagar Police have registered a case against Danish, Sufiyan and Riyaz.
