What started as an innocent argument in a restaurant washroom ended in a bloody attack that left a 19-year-old Toronto man beaten to death with golf clubs.

Bhumin Patel said he watched helplessly as half a dozen men mercilessly beat his friend Nitish Khanna with the clubs in the parking lot of the Tasty Bite restaurant in Mississauga early yesterday.

The car rental worker, who had partied with friends after work Sunday night before stopping for a late snack, died on the pavement outside the eatery on Torbram Road, north of Derry Road.

Patel said he, Khanna and another pal were ambushed by at least six men as they left the tandoori restaurant near Pearson airport at about 2 a.m.

“We were only three and they were six,” Patel said outside the Panorama Court apartment building in northwest Toronto where Khanna lived with his parents.

“I felt helpless. He’s been my friend for years and I could not do anything.”

Paramedics tried to save Khanna, but he died at the scene.

Minutes earlier, Patel said their friend Bhupinder had been harassed in the restaurant bathroom by another man because he was short. He said Khanna and Bhupinder had gone to the table of the other men to ask what the problem was and believed they had resolved the issue.