Bidar: The villagers of Kamthana where a French researcher was mistaken for a child lifter and manhandled, regretted the incident on Tuesday. The fast spreading rumour about kidnappers moving around the district was behind the assault.

Rotzer Klaus, a retired professor based in Paris, visited Kamthana in Bidar taluk on Sunday. An international expert on forts, he was studying the rainwater harvesting structures inside and outside the Bidar fort. Kamthana that has a 400-year-old dam that served as a minor irrigation tank and a bathtub for royal elephants attracted his attention. Some people mistook him to be a kidnapper and assaulted him. He and his assistant Mohammad Akram received minor injuries. Timely arrival and intervention of a police team saved them.

They are both safe now. They left for Solapur on Tuesday. They plan to come back to the village a few weeks later. Prof. Klaus is presenting a paper on rainwater harvesting in Bidar at a seminar on Deccan Art in the Central University in Hyderabad starting January 22.

On Tuesday, at a meeting at the house of zilla panchayat member Kushal Rao Yaba in Kamthana, village elders expressed regret over the incident.

"On behalf of the villagers, I apologise to Prof. Klaus," Mr. Yaba said.

The police said Prof. Klaus had committed a mistake by not informing the Superintendent of Police about his visit to the district as per the law.

However, Prof. Klaus has not lodged a police complaint.

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