By IANS, Kolkata : Five members of a football team were arrested Tuesday for the death of a teenager who they had allegedly hit on the head with a wicket after a row over sharing the same playing area at the Maidan here.
“We have made five arrests so far. All of them (members of the soccer group) were arrested from Kolkata this morning,” Deputy Commissioner of Police (South) Ajay Kumar told IANS.
The friendly cricket match Mohammad Imran, 15, was playing turned into an endgame after a fight with a local soccer team of Hastings in central Kolkata. The football match was also on in a playground adjacent to where Imran and his teammates were playing on the vast expanse of green called the Maidan that is the hub of sports activity in the city.
A verbal duel between the two teams over possession of the playground soon led to physical violence. Imran was badly beaten with wickets by a member of the soccer team. Two of his friends – Majid Alam and Mohammad Shamim – were also assaulted severely.
He was taken to the state-run SSKM Hospital with critical head and chest injuries and later removed to a private hospital in south Kolkata where he was declared brought dead.
Imran had appeared in the school final examination this year from a south Kolkata school. Both his friends were admitted to a private hospital of Kidderpore in south Kolkata.
In a similar incident, Rabin Ash, 18, of adjacent Howrah district, also died when a fight broke out between two cricket teams. Rabin succumbed to a wicket blow on the head by one of the rival team members.