Prithvi manhandled after refusing to take selfies with influencer

MUMBAI: India opening batter Prithvi Shaw was allegedly manhandled and his car was attacked with a baseball attack outside a hotel in Santacruz area of Mumbai, following an argument with a woman social media influencer Sapna Gill and her friend Shobit Thakur after the batter refused to click selfies with the influencer.

The incident took place in the early hours of Wednesday. The Oshiwara Police has arrested Gill and seven others have been booked for allegedly trying to intimidate the cricketer by damaging his car and threatening to implicate him in a fake case.

Gill is a social media influencer with over 2 lakh followers on Instagram and also has an online presence on applications like Josh, a video-sharing app, Snapchat and Youtube. She hails from Chandigarh and resides in Mumbai.

As per Police officials, the influencer was called to the police station for inquiry on Thursday and she was placed under arrest after preliminary inquires established her alleged involvement in the incident.

Gill's lawyer argued that the influencer was a fan of Shaw and wanted to take a selfie with him. But the cricketer was drunk and misbehaved with her. He also accused the batter of assaulting Gill with a wooden bat. Police also said that Gill and Thakur were in an intoxicated state during the incident.

A complaint about the incident was filed by Shaw's friend Ashish Yadav, who is his flatmate for the last three years and runs a cafe. As per the complaint, the cricketer was approached by Gill and Thakur for a selfie at the hotel and Shaw initially allowed them to get clicked with him. But when they insisted on getting more pictures with him, Shaw turned down the demand, following which Gill and her friend started to misbehave with the cricket in an inebriated condition. On seeing this, the hotel manager intervened and asked both Gill and Thakur to vacate the premises.

Following this incident, Shaw and Yadav had dinner at the hotel. But when they stepped out, they saw Thakur holding a baseball bat in his hand. The accused went on to attack the windshield of the car. Shaw was also manhandled by Gill.

The cricketer was shifted to another car while Yadav and others drove his vehicle to Oshiwara. Yadav observed that three motorcycles and a white-coloured car were chasing their vehicle. At 4 AM, the chasers attacked his car while it was taking a U-Turn near a petrol pump on Link Road.

Thakur was one of the persons chasing the vehicle and attacked its windshield with a bat. The six persons on motorcycles along with Gill and Thakur, who were both sitting in a car, abused Yadav and his friends. Following this, Yadav took the car to Oshiwara police station.

Thakur, who was one of them, broke the rear windshield of the car with the baseball bat. The six persons on motorcycles along with Gill and Thakur, who were in the car, abused Yadav and those accompanying him. After that, Yadav took the car to the Oshiwara police station.

The eight accused followed Yadav to the station and threatened him to pay Rs50,000 to settle the issue or else she would lodge a fake police complaint against them, as per police. Following this, Yadav filed a complaint against the accused. Oshiwara Police registered a case under sections 143 (unlawful assembly), 148 (rioting), 384 (extortion), 506 (criminal intimidation) and others of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) based on the complaint.