DUBAI // A salesman who was among a gang that attacked an elderly man then tried to kill two students who came to the man’s rescue was sentenced to six months in jail.
Dubai Criminal Court heard that Indian O K, 21, and three others were seen by two Indian students assaulting the elderly man on September 27 last year.
The students rushed to help the victim but were themselves stabbed and hit with a rock. Both of the men collapsed and had to undergo life-saving surgery after the brutal attack.
“My friend and I tried to help the old man,” said one of the victims, A G, 23.
“O K and his friends started beating both of us, punching and kicking us all over our bodies before one of them grabbed a large rock and hit me repeatedly with it on the head. Then another stabbed me in my back and side and I fainted.”
The other victim, S P, 23, said two of the gang assaulted his friend and two assaulted him.
“I saw the two as they stabbed me with knives in several places. I bled heavily, then fainted,” he said.
When police arrived, the two victims were in a critical condition. “A G could barely speak,” said policeman H H.
The pair were two were taken to hospital, where doctors performed emergency surgery.
The salesman denied a charge of attempted murder and claimed he saw the two students fighting and assaulting each other with knives.
“I interfered to stop them. I didn’t try to kill them,” he said in court in January last year.
One of the gang members remains at large, while the two others have been referred to the Juvenile Court.
Prosecutors allege that all three were drunk at the time of the incident and, after they attempted to kill the students, they robbed them.
O K also blamed the man at large for the stabbing but he was convicted for attempted murder and was sentenced to six months in jail to be followed by deportation. He was fined Dh2,000 for drinking alcohol without a licence but he was acquitted from the robbery charge.
salamir@thenational.ae