A 41-year-old man died after he was allegedly assaulted by a group of people in Nashik’s Rahul Nagar on Sunday evening, with a post-mortem examination attributing the death to neck trauma and head injuries, police said. An FIR against four people was being registered under the Upnagar police station at the time of the report.
The deceased was identified as Pradeep Kailas Bhalerao, a resident of Panchasheel Nagar on Takli Road. The incident took place behind Gandhinagar on Pune Road, within the jurisdiction of the Upnagar police station.
According to senior inspector Sanjay Pise, Bhalerao, who had been undergoing treatment for mental-health problems for nearly a decade, left his home at about 7pm and became involved in an argument with a youth aged between 20 and 25. Police said Bhalerao allegedly grabbed the youth and did not release him.
The youth’s family members and several bystanders then intervened, according to the police account. They allegedly assaulted Bhalerao during the attempt to free the youth. Investigators found that a nylon rope and a saree or dupatta were also allegedly used during the assault.
Bhalerao collapsed unconscious at the scene and was taken to Bytco Hospital in Nashik Road. Doctors declared him brought dead. Police initially registered the case as an accidental death, but the post-mortem report later cited neck trauma and head injuries as the cause of death, prompting the move to register an FIR.
Residents told police that they had previously complained about Bhalerao’s behaviour. They alleged that he sometimes attacked passersby and threw stones at people, and said the issue had been brought to the police’s notice on multiple occasions. These claims were part of the local residents’ account and had not, in the report, been independently established through medical or administrative records.
The case places immediate scrutiny on how police and local communities respond when a person with a reported mental-health condition is considered a threat in a neighbourhood. The allegations about repeated complaints, if established during the investigation, will also form part of the inquiry into whether earlier intervention was attempted and what action was taken.
Police were expected to record the FIR against the four people involved and continue investigating the sequence of events, the alleged use of the rope and clothing item, and the circumstances that led to Bhalerao’s death.
