By Christine Lavelle
A MAN was stabbed in broad daylight after an alleged brawl took place in front of people heading home from work.
Evening commuters were horrified to see 34-year-old Amit Pandya bleeding heavily from his back after the fight in Edinburgh’s Fountainbridge area.
The incident happened at around 5.30pm on Monday night on the corner of Yeaman Place and Dundee Street, where witnesses claimed he had been knifed in his lower back.
Mr Pandya had apparently been fighting in the street with another man while a woman looked on.
A 41-year-old man and a woman aged 24, were charged in connection with the incident, and were due to appear in Edinburgh Sheriff Court today.
One witness said he heard the injured man scream: “I’ve been stabbed.”
A nearby chip-shop owner said he saw an Asian man bleeding in the street when he looked out his shop window.
He said: “I saw the guy had blood on his back.
“The girl was trying to calm the guy down.
“I tried to break it up and the guy turned on me.
“He was calling me everything, swearing at me.
“I said ‘I’m trying to help’.
“Eventually, a customer pulled him and me into the shop and we shut the door.
“The guy was going mad and banging on the windows.
“He was bleeding, heavily I’d say.
“He was breathing heavily too.
“He’d been stabbed in the lower back and there was blood coming through his T-shirt.
“I heard him shout before ‘I’ve been stabbed’.
“We phoned the ambulance and someone called the police.
“I’ve never lived anywhere like this before.
“People need to stick together and help each other.”
Mr Pandya was taken to Edinburgh Royal Infirmary where his condition was believed to be stable.
Faisal Ali, 28, runs the shop next door, and said two men had come into his shop earlier – arguing and swearing at each other.
He said: “They came in together and they were swearing at each other.
“They seemed to know each other.
“I said ‘please leave the shop’.
Lauren MacInnes, 26, who lives above the shops where the incident took place, said she saw the injured man holding himself up against the wall when she got off the bus.
She said: “He was standing and leaning against the wall but he looked pretty bad.
“He was bleeding from the back.
“People were around him helping him and a woman got him a bottle of water.
“You don’t expect something like that to happen in broad daylight on a main road when people are coming home from work.”
A Lothian and Borders Police spokeswoman said: “A man and a woman have been arrested after a 34-year-old man was the victim of a serious assault that happened in the Fountainbridge area of the Capital.
“The victim has been taken to the Edinburgh Royal Infirmary, and police are appealing for witnesses to the incident, which happened in Yeaman Place around 5.30pm.
“Anyone with any information should contact Lothian and Borders Police on 0131 311 3131, or Crimestoppers in confidence and complete anonymity on 0800 555 111.”
