Dubai: A man accused of hitting his supervisor with a cricket stump denied the accusation in the Dubai Court of First Instance on Monday, claiming that he was instead stopping co-workers from assaulting the victim over unpaid salaries.
In the August 2016 incident, the 27-year-old Pakistani supervisor was in his car when a worker knocked at a window and snatched his mobile phone when he opened it. When the supervisor stepped out of his car to claim his phone, a group of workers ganged up against him and beat him.
One of the assailants, a 29-year-old Bangladeshi worker, was accused of knocking the supervisor unconscious by striking him with a cricket stump.
Police apprehended the 29-year-old and prosecutors charged him with assault and stealing the victim’s phone and Dh2,500.
“I did not strike him … there was a group fight between the workers, who had not been paid their salaries, and the supervisor. I intervened to stop the fight,” the accused told presiding judge Urfan Omar on Monday.
However, the victim told prosecutors that the accused assaulted him.
“Once I stepped out of the car, the suspect took me by surprise and struck me with a cricket stump … I fell down unconscious. The suspect took away my phone and a white envelope that contained Dh2,500 … the other workers stood afar and were holding sticks.”
A Sudanese senior supervisor told prosecutors that the company’s general managed alerted him over the phone that the workers had ganged up to assault the supervisor.
“The general manager told me that the workers were outraged and wanted to beat the supervisor who had not been paying them their salaries. I called up the supervisor and alerted him ... he informed me that he went to the workers’ accommodation where they threatened to assault him with sticks and kicked him out. Once I reached the location, I saw an ambulance and realised that the suspect had struck the supervisor with a cricket stump.”
A ruling will be heard on July 30.
