Midnight road rage leaves NRI from Saudi in hospital

Thiruvananthapuram: An NRI returning home from Saudi Arabia was injured in an apparent case of road rage involving two groups near Vizhinjam during the early hours of Thursday.
The incident occurred near Vizhinjam Junction around 12.15am, police said. Sunil Kumar alias Sunil (30) of Marthandam in Tamil Nadu is the one who was attacked. He has suffered serious injuries on his left hand and left thigh after being hacked with a machete.
Sunil, who worked in Saudi Arabia, had arrived here in an Air India flight that landed at Trivandrum International Airport at 11.15pm. He was picked up by his brother Selvan and brother-in-law, police said.
They told the police that the violence was the climax of an episode of road rage that lasted from Vellar to Vizhinjam stretch that was part of NH66. Soon after they had left the airport in a car, four men on two bikes overtook them and started riding in a zigzag manner. They had to continuously honk to overtake the men, who were riding their bikes dangerously. Apparently irked by the honking, the assailants blocked their car at Vellar and sparked a verbal duel. The men appeared to be drunk, police were told.
Though they ended the quarrel and resumed the journey, two of the assailants blocked them again at Vizhinjam and hacked Sunil, who alighted from the car to talk to them.
Sunil was admitted to Ananthapuri Hospital near the airport.
Vizhinjam sub-inspector Ratheesh said that they were yet to identify the suspects.
The surveillance cameras installed along the NH66 were being examined to find out the suspects, he said.
It was only a day ago the TOI had reported that Thiruvananthapuram city recorded most number of rash driving and road rage cases in 2015 as per the data released by National Crime Records Bureau.