The IISER or Indian Institutes of Science Education and Research on Thursday expressed sorrow over the death of its scientist, Dr Abhishek Swarnkar, during a parking dispute in Punjab’s Mohali. In a statement, the IISER said they have “lost a brilliant mind” and demanded strict action against the accused.

“We have lost a brilliant mind. Such an act of violence is unacceptable, and strict action should be taken against the accused,” it said, as quoted by news agency IANS.

The statement also mentioned that Dr Swarnkar was selected by the Department of Science and Technology to meet Nobel Laureates in 2017. It added that his research paper was recently published in the prestigious Journal of Science.

Originally from Jharkhand’s Dhanbad, Dr Swarnkar had recently returned to India from Switzerland and joined IISER as a project scientist.

The 39-year-old scientist died on Tuesday night after his neighbour, Monty, pushed him to the ground and punched him during an altercation over a parking issue near his rented home in Mohali’s Sector 67.

A CCTV footage of the incident shows some residents, including the accused, standing near the scientist’s bike. Dr Swarnkar can be then seen walking towards his bike and starting to remove it when an argument followed between him and the residents. A few seconds later, Monty can be seen pushing Dr Swarnkar to the ground and hitting him. The scientist’s family then intervened and pulled Monty away.

The scientist, who had recently undergone a kidney transplant and was on dialysis, was rushed to a nearby hospital, where he died.

Dr Swarnkar’s mother, Malti Devi, narrating the harrowing incident to NDTV, said, “They regularly bothered us, don’t park here, don’t park there. He (Abhishek) returned from IISER (that night) and parked his bike. They asked him to remove it and there was an argument. They shouted, ‘We will blow up the bike’. I told them, ‘It is in front of you, blow it up’. My son got agitated. My husband was downstairs and was talking to them. My son went downstairs. He moved his bike to show them how difficult it would be to take it out if he parked where they wanted him to.”

According to the elderly woman, they had been staying in the rented house since December 2023.

“We did not know the system then, that people park right outside their homes. My son kept moving his bike from one spot to another as some or the other person asked him to. We felt harassed that no matter where the bike was parked, someone had a problem,” she said.