PUNE: The Saswad police are searching for a group of around 150 people accused of beating up 14 men from Kondhwa who had assembled close to a lake at Askarwadi near Bopdev Ghat, just outside the city limits, for Ramzan Iftar around 7pm on Friday.In an FIR lodged on Saturday, complainant Feroz Sayyed (36) of Kondhwa said he and his friends had gone to the lakeside area to break their fast when the assailants targeted them. He said they had carried food packets and other edibles along. The lake is located off Bopdev Ghat-Saswad Road, nearly 12km from the Kondhwa area.The police said they had booked 100-150 unidentified people for the alleged assault.
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Inspector Kumar Kadam of the Saswad police said, “We are checking CCTV footage of the area. We have so far identified three of the assailants. We will soon identify the rest and arrest them.”When asked if the assailants were affiliated to any organisation, inspector Kadam said, “We are verifying their background.”When contacted, Sayyed told TOI, “I, along with 13 of my friends, went to the lakeside area for Iftar on Friday on our motorcycles and in a car. We had barely opened our food packets when a group of 100-150 men – carrying sticks, sharp weapons, whips and stones – suddenly reached the spot on about 100 two-wheelers.”He said, “They asked us why we had gathered there, questioned our choice of attire and warned us not to visit the area again. They told us to immediately leave the site, and started abusing and assaulting us with the weapons they were carrying. The assailants raised slogans while beating us up.”Sayyed said, “We fled the spot to save ourselves. Most of us suffered head, back and leg injuries. We later went to a hospital in Kondhwa, where doctors treated us.”Sayyed, who runs a cloth stall on MG Road in Camp, said more people had gathered near the lake for Iftar, and some of them were allegedly assaulted by the same group of men.
