Poor record casts doubts over police's investigating power

By Our Staff Reporter

BANGALORE, JULY 22. Will the police succeed in nabbing the culprits who gunned down a jeweller on Wheeler's Road on Saturday night and made away with ornaments worth lakhs of rupees?

This is the question haunting all those who are well aware of the history of shoot-outs that have taken place in Bangalore in particular and the State in general.

For, in the last six years, police have not been able to nab the culprits in any of the shoot-out cases reported from the City and its outskirts as well as the coastal districts of the State.

However, the Wheeler's Road shoot-out seems to be different from the similar incidents of the past. The latest case appears to be a murder for gain, while in the earlier cases, the killings were mainly due to rivalries and disputes.

The assailants who shot dead a realtor, Subbaraju, and a chartered accountancy student, Dinesh Bansali, in Seshadripuram in January last are still at large.

While a few people have been arrested and chargesheeted in the Subbaraju murder case, the real culprits who pumped bullets into the relator's body have not been nabbed yet. A dispute over a prime property on Cunningham Road had reportedly led to Subbaraju's murder.

The investigations into the Bansali murder case has almost reached a dead end with police not able to figure out even the motive behind the killing.

Police as well as public seem to have almost forgotten the murder of Ramesh, a JTM executive, who was shot dead near his house in Indiranagar in 1998. What led to his murder as well as who were behind it has still remained a mystery.

While police could arrest a few people in connection with the murder of Seena, a look alike and driver of Agni Sreedhar, who was shot dead in Iliyasnagar by sharp-shooters from Mumbai in 1997, the prime accused, Bannanje Raja, is still elusive.

Even in the sensational K.G.Halli shoot-out case of 1998, the main accused, Rasheed Malabari, a Mumbai gangster and his associates could not be nabbed by police.

Similarly, police could not lay their hands on the two gangsters, owing allegiance to the don Chhota Rajan, who gunned down a hotelier, Mohan Kotian, near Hoskote in 1996. While one of these gangsters, Rohit Verma was subsequently killed in a shoot-out in Bangkok, another sharp-shooter, Ravi Poojari is still at large.

Likewise police have so far not arrested the gangsters said to be the associates of the Mumbai ganglord, Pappu Yadav, who were involved in a shoot-out at a bar near Pallavi Cinema in Sampangiramnagar Police limits in 1994.

Apart from these shoot-outs that have taken place in and around Bangalore, the two murders of legislators in Uttara Kannada District have also remained unsolved.

The officers of the Corps of Detectives (CoD) arrested Dileep Arjun Naik who had allegedly master-minded the murder of Karwar MLA, Vasanth Asnotikar, last year. However, the two sharp- shooters suspected to be from Ashwin Naik gang of Mumbai who actually gunned down the MLA have not been arrested so far.

As police themselves admit in private, Dileep Arjun Naik, who had fled to Dubai, was nabbed with the help of the underworld don, Muthappa Rai, who is based in Dubai.

Though the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) has been investigating the murder of the Bhatkal MLA, U.Chittaranjan, who was shot dead inside his house in April 1996, the motive behind the killing is still not known. The culprits have not been arrested, though six years have passed since the MLA was gunned down.

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Section  : Southern States
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