61-Year-Old Ex-Army Man Fought to Save His Employee from a Local Thug

He may be a senior citizen but that didn’t deter him from standing up for his employee in the face of a knife wielding goon. 61-year-old Uttam Patkar is a retired Army man from Mumbai. This is how he single-handedly subdued a notorious criminal, after fighting him for 20 minutes.

This 61-year-old man has earned the respect of the entire nation by single-handedly fighting a goon for 20 minutes, that too barehanded and after being threatened at knifepoint.

Ex-Hawaldar Uttam Patkar, had fought for the country during the 1971 Indo-Pak war. Today, he runs a photo-studio in Kandivali.

At around 5:00 pm on Sunday, just when his employee Samir Gavde left the studio and was getting on his bike, a local thug stopped him by putting a knife to his neck. Balaji Laxman Patil, the 27-year-old culprit, started demanding money and thrust his hand into Samir’s pocket, pulling out Rs. 1,100. However, before he could run away or threaten any more, Uttam heard Samir’s calls for help and rushed to his rescue.

Uttam immediately grabbed the hand with which the robber was holding his knife. Balaji punched and kicked the senior citizen several times, but Uttam didn’t let go. He put his army training to good use. After a lot of struggle, Balaji was handed over to the police who arrived 30 minutes later.

“The local boy (Balaji) is notorious; he has been troubling many shopkeepers in the area. When I intervened, I saw that he had a sharp knife in one hand and in the other he was holding a stone. The first thing I did was to jump and grab the hand holding the knife. I held a very tight grip on it to ensure that he could not attack me with the knife,”  Uttam told Mid Day.

It is shocking that in the crowd that had gathered, not one person stepped forward to help the unarmed senior citizen who had rushed to save his employee. But Uttam’s indisputable bravery has managed to override that, restoring our faith in humanity.

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