Goa ;‘Australian put knife to waiter’s neck’

‘Australian put knife to waiter’s neck’
Restaurant Employees Claim Abusive Kelly Started Fight
Preetu Nair | TNN

Panaji: The forensic report on the body of John Kelly, the Australian who died on Wednesday after being beaten up by some restaurant waiters in Calangute, says that death was due to internal bleeding due to a blunt and forcible impact.
“After going through the post-mortem report, we believe that the death may have been caused due to a punch, kick or from falling on a hard object or the floor,” said DySP Gundu Naik. The report says the Australian had a lacerated tear to the small intestine. The viscera has been preserved for chemical analysis.
Calangute police have arrested three persons—waiter Jaikrishna Das, 25, from Orissa, security guard Manab Basak, 32, from West Bengal and restaurant shift in-charge Jagat Pradhan, 23, from Assam—on charges of alleged murder of the Australian.
Kelly, 65, had picked up an argument with a restaurant waiter over how and to whom beer should be served. According to sources, Kelly arrived at Club City Restaurant at about 8 am on Wednesday and ordered beer for himself and a few Indian tourists sitting at the restaurant. But as the waiter didn’t listen to him, it led to an altercation.
Waiters at the restaurant say that the three arrested persons were provoked by the foreigner, who threatened them with a knife. “Eight Indian tourists were having alcohol when Kelly walked into the restaurant and offered to buy them drinks. This is the first time he had come to our place. He paid the waiter Jaikrishna Rs 500 and asked him to get the Indian tourists more beer. When the tourists refused to accept Kelly’s beer, the waiter returned the money to the Australian, who was then upset and abused the waiter with foul language and put a knife near his neck,” said Club City Restaurant manager Sachin Karanjkar.
“This scared the waiter, who pushed and punched Kelly on the face, as a result of which Kelly started bleeding from the cheek. Basak then snatched the knife from Kelly and in the tussle Kelly fell down. Jagat tried to pacify the waiter and Kelly, but the Australian left the place hurling abuses,” said Karanjkar. He said the foreigner later returned with a beat constable, but left immediately thereafter.
Incidentally, though Karanjkar talked about a knife being carried by the foreigner, he admitted that he didn’t know where the knife came from. Even the police admit they are clueless about the knife.
Rajesh Khanna, owner of the restaurant, said, “The boys were pushed into a corner and that’s the reason they overreacted. Let the law take its own course.”
Kelly had arrived in Goa on September 29 and was initially staying at Jack’s Place, Candolim Ximer, but had shifted to a rented flat on October 7, belonging to one Camilo Vaz at Candolim.

CALANGUTE MURDER
Aussie visited Goa frequently
Panaji: John Kelly, who died following an attack by a waiter at a Calangute restaurant on Wednesday, had come to Goa in 2003 with wife Bela. Sources said that the couple used to visit Goa frequently. Police said that Kelly’s passport reveals that he was a Scottish national settled in Australia and held a British and Australian citizenship.
People in the belt who knew Kelly said that he was a friendly person, but sometimes turned aggressive under the influence of alcohol. A restaurant owner who knew Kelly said, “He was a nice person, but sometimes when he was drunk, he would get aggressive and abusive. We met on Tuesday afternoon when he came for a drink to my restaurant. After one peg he left, stating he was not feeling well and was suffering from deep vein thrombosis.”
Police sources said that on Wednesday morning, Kelly was to get his ear checked by a doctor and had asked the complainant Monico Menezes, whom he had befriended in 2003 to help him. “When Menezes reached the flat at 10 am, he learnt from the landlord that Kelly had collapsed outside the entrance of his flat and was vomiting blood and
had to be shifted to the hospital in an ambulance,” said police sources.
Vaz told TOI, “I didn’t know Kelly personally as he had come to stay at our flat on Tuesday. He left the flat at 6 am on Wednesday and later in the evening we learned that he had expired.”
DySP Naik said, “Kelly didn’t collapse in the restaurant. He reached home and then collapsed. He was first taken to the CT scan centre and then shifted to GMC. His condition was critical and he was vomiting blood. Later he was put on a ventilator.”
Naik added, “According to the complainant, the doctor at GMC informed him that Kelly had internal bleeding in the abdomen because of which he was vomiting blood and needed to operated immediately.” Though Menezes refused to meet or speak, sources close to him said that during the treatment Kelly did vomit blood.
The post-mortem conducted on Thursday at Goa Medical College states that the death was due to, “haemorrhagic shock as a result of injuries to the small intestine consequent to blunt, forcible impacts which were antemortem, fresh and fatal in ordinary course of nature”.

October 10, 2008, The Times of India, Goa edition