Adelaide: An Indian-origin man has suffered severe brain damage after being manhandled by policemen in Australia’s Adelaide. Doctors at the Royal Adelaide Hospital have said that 42-year-old Gaurav Kundi suffered severe injuries to his head and neck.
Kundi’s wife Amritpal Kaur, who was witness to the ‘violent’ arrest, claims that the policemen slammed his head against a car and on the road before kneeling on his neck. Senior police officers have said that their men operated as per procedure after Kundi resisted arrest.
According to The Australia Today, Kundi shouted “I’ve done nothing wrong,” before losing consciousness.
According to Kaur, the incident occurred on Payneham Road after a patrol car approached the couple, mistakenly interpreting their loud argument as a case of domestic violence.
In an interview to 9News, she claimed that Kundi had left home after consuming liquor. She followed him out and asked him to return home. “What are you doing here? Let’s get back home. You are drunk. You are not well. We will go home,” she told her husband. This was when Kundi pushed her.
A passing police vehicle noticed all this and personnel inside accosted Kundi. They were in the belief that this was a case of domestic violence that had somehow spilled out onto the street. Suspecting Kundi of having assaulted his wife, they tried to pin him down.
“The policeman thinks he’s assaulting me and doing domestic violence on the road, but the policeman is wrong. He is just drunk and that’s why he is loud, nothing else,” Kaur says during her interview.
She claimed that the policemen slammed Kundi’s head against the car and also on the road. Kaur was initially recording the incident on her phone, but stopped when things escalated. “I panicked when the officer knelt on Gaurav,” she said.
“Doctors are saying his brain is totally damaged. Maybe he will wake up if his brain works, or maybe he will not,” Kaur said. The couple have two children.
South Australian Police Commissioner Grant Stevens has claimed that his men acted according to their training. This was after he reviewed footage from a bodycam. Assistant Commissioner John DeCandia said he was “comfortable” seeing the officers acting appropriately.
