The police said the incident occurred when the deceased, Devi Rani, tried to intervene during a fight between her son, Vijay Malhotra, and their tenants — Inderjeet Singh (54) and his son Rinku (30) over he payment of rent and electricity bills.

Vijay Malhotra told Newsline, “Our tenants had not paid rent for the past four months. Their electricity bill also amounted to Rs 3,000 this month. On Tuesday night, I was standing outside our house with my mother when they returned. When I told them about the bill, Inderjeet replied curtly that he would not pay as he did not have the money. An argument ensued and Rinku, Inderjeet, his brother Amarjeet and nephew Sunny started beating me up.”

Seeing her son being roughed up, Devi attempted to stop them. In the process, she was allegedly slapped and punched by the tenants and collapsed.

Amarjeet and Sunny fled the spot, Vijay and his friends, however, managed to lock up Rinku and Inderjeet inside the house and informed the police at 9.45 pm.

Devi was rushed to Lifeline Hospital, where she was declared dead on arrival. Police officers said Rani did not have any external injuries, but died of a heart attack due to shock.

The police said the families were not on good terms for the past five months after Vijay increased the rent from Rs 3,500 to Rs 5,000. Enraged by this, Singh had not paid the rent for the past four months, after which Vijay told them to move out by March 10, police said. Vijay said the Singhs owed them Rs 30,000, including rent, electricity and water bill.

Vijay, who works with Tata Motors as a collection agent, said they had been asking the Singhs to vacate the premises for a long time.

“They had taken up the house on rent three years ago. Within a year, we started getting visitors enquiring about them. They apparently had quite a few creditors. We had questioned them about this several times, but Inderjeet always replied that it was not my concern,” he added.