Bengaluru: Former Goa MLA Lavoo Suryaji Mamledar died on Saturday after he was attacked by an auto-rickshaw driver over a minor dispute in Karnataka's Belagavi on Saturday afternoon. Police said the incident was reported after Mamledar (68), who represented the Ponda constituency from 2012 to 2017, had booked a hotel in Srinivas Lodge in Khade Bazar. As his car went inside a narrow lane in the area, it allegedly brushed against an auto-rickshaw, triggering an altercation between the two.
The confrontation went to the level that the auto-rickshaw driver slapped Mamledar and after that, the politician collapsed while climbing the stairs of his lodge and was rushed to a nearby hospital where doctors declared him brought dead. His body was sent for postmortem examination to know the exact cause of his death.
In the meantime, the accused auto-rickshaw driver was arrested after police examined the CCTV camera installed near Mamledar's lodge where the incident took place. Further investigation into the matter is underway.