A man who allegedly pushed a 39-year-old scientist during a parking altercation in Punjab’s Mohali, leading to the latter’s death, was arrested on Saturday, police said.
The accused, Maninder Pal Singh Monty, will be produced in court on Sunday, the police added.
On Tuesday night, Monty had reportedly pushed Dr Abhishek Swarnkar, who worked at the Indian Institute of Science Education and Research (IISER), Mohali, to the ground and punched him during an altercation over parking near the scientist’s rented accommodation in Sector 67.
CCTV footage of the incident shows Monty hitting Swarnkar, as both families intervene and pull them away.
Swarnkar, who had recently undergone a kidney transplant and was on dialysis, was rushed to the hospital where he died. The scientist’s family had demanded strict action against the accused, who went missing after the incident.
Police said a case of culpable homicide not amounting to murder was registered and that they were scanning CCTVs to plan further action. The accused had gone missing immediately after the incident.
Speaking to NDTV, Swarnkar’s mother Malti Devi accused Monty and his family of constant harassment over parking. “They regularly bothered us, saying 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.Â
Swarnkar, Ms Devi added, told Monty and his family 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,” she said.
The scientist’s mother said they have been staying in the neighbourhood in Mohali’s Sector 67 since December 2023. “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.Â
In a statement, the IISER said they have “lost a brilliant mind” and demanded strict action against the accused. “We have lost a brilliant mind. Such an act of violence is unacceptable, and strict action should be taken against the accused,” it said, as quoted by news agency IANS.
The statement also mentioned that Swarnkar was selected by the Department of Science and Technology to meet Nobel Laureates in 2017. It added that his research paper was recently published in the prestigious Journal of Science.
Originally from Jharkhand’s Dhanbad, Swarnkar had recently returned to India from Switzerland and joined IISER as a project scientist.