A ‘friendly street fight’ between two friends in India tragically spiraled out of control, leading to one dying and the other being charged with his murder.
This cautionary tale of a street fight gone horribly wrong unfolded near a school in Hyderabad, the capital of the southern Indian state of Telangana on May 3rd of 2015.
A group of teenage friends had arranged the fight between the 17 year-old victim, Nabeel Mohammed and 19 year-old Owais Mohammed Patel, after having watched Manny Pacquiao’s blockbuster fight with Floyd Mayweather Jr the previous night.
Onlookers are said to have bet on the outcome, and filmed the action on their mobile phones.
As the video footage begins, the tall, dark haired Patel, who’s wearing a black shirt and tan trousers, is being given some last minute advice from one of his friends.
The two fighters are then brought together, with Mohammed, wearing a white t-shirt and black tracksuit bottoms with a red stripe, flashing a quick smile at the camera just before the fight gets underway.
The fight begins in the clinch, but quickly turns into a toe-to-toe brawl, with Patel landing a few right uppercuts and then shots to the body, while Mohammed responds by keeping his head low and winging some wild punches in his taller opponent’s direction.
Patel then connects with up to a dozen right hooks to the head, and the repeated blows take a devastating toll on Mohammed, who suddenly slumps face first onto the road, motionless.
At first glance this doesn’t look any more violent than the hundreds of other street fights that can be found on the net that have ended with cringe-inducing KO’s.
However, the consequences here were far more serious than just a concussion, some bruised knuckles and a lingering regret about having agreed to fight in the first place.
Mohammed’s friends panicked when he failed to wake up and rushed him to a nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead on arrival.
They then brought Mohammed’s body back to his mother, by which point they had hatched a plan to cover up the cause of his death by claiming that he had died in a motorcycle accident.
However, several days later Mohammed’s father became suspicious due to the teenagers having conflicting stories as to what had actually happened that day, and so he reported the matter to the police.
By this stage most of the bystanders had deleted their mobile footage evidence, but police managed to locate the video seen here, which revealed the real cause of death.
A post-mortem revealed that Mohammed had suffered internal bleeding and died from a brain haemorrhage within 30 seconds of collapsing.
A total of nine individuals, including two minors, were arrested and charged with murder as a result of the fight.
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They included Patel who landed the fatal blows, 22 year-old Umer Baig who had allegedly insisted on the fight and created the false story afterwards, 31 year-old Mohammed Wasim who had refereed the bout, and 19 year-old Mohammed Obaid who filmed the video.
It goes without saying that this disturbing story serves as a sobering example of why participating in a street fight, whether it’s ‘friendly’ or not, is a terrible idea, and should be avoided at all costs.
It’s natural to want to emulate your sporting heroes, but never forget that whether it’s in professional boxing or mixed martial arts, they are playing by a completely different set of rules.
The participants are legally licensed to fight, are required to undergo pre-fight medical checks, including brain scans to reveal any underlying health issues, not to mention the fact that they are wearing gloves and gum-shields, while being overseen by a trained referee, and with medical staff on stand-by should anything go wrong.
Even then bad things can still happen, so attempting to fight without any of the above safeguards is a foolhardy pursuit that’s simply not worth the risk.
