The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : Six held in Peenya shooting case

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Sunday, Apr 22, 2007
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Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

Six held in Peenya shooting case

Staff Reporter

A housewife lost sight in her right eye after being hit by a bullet in February

MYSTERY SOLVED: The accused allegedly involved in the Peenya shooting case at the Police Commissioner's office. Bangalore Police Commissioner N. Achuta Rao is at right. — Photo: K. Gopinathan

BANGALORE: The North division police have solved the mystery related to February's shooting incident in Peenya where a housewife lost sight in her right eye after being hit by a bullet.

The police, who have arrested six people in connection with the incident, said that in a case of mistaken identity the gunman had shot at Rajeshwari (30), who was a tenant at industrialist Kannan Naidu's house in MEI Layout on Tumkur Road.

The gang had planned to shoot at Mr. Naidu's family members, create a fear among them and extort Rs. 50 lakh from the industrialist, Deputy Commissioner of Police (North) Malini Krishnamurthy told presspersons here on Saturday.

Around 8.30 p.m. on February 1, two men came to the house and called out Mr. Naidu's name.

Ms. Rajeshwari came out of her first floor home and told them that the Naidus lived in the other portion of the house.

Even as she was talking to them, one of them suddenly opened fire at her and the two escaped on a motorcycle.

Ms. Krishnamurthy said that in the absence of clues, the investigation had reached a dead end.

But a month after the incident, Mr. Naidu started getting extortion calls. The caller, who spoke in Telugu, was demanding Rs. 50 lakh.

The extortion calls provided the leads and the police arrested six people, including the mastermind and the gunman, she said.

The main accused Anand (38), a carpenter from Vellore district of Tamil Nadu, is a distant relative of Mr. Naidu. He worked at Naidu's house here for a few days and sought a loan from him. As Mr. Naidu refused to lend him money, he planned to fleece him, Ms. Krishnamurthy said.

On Anand's instructions, Kamalkannan (20) of Vellore and Harish (20) of Bangalore came to Mr. Naidu's house on February 1. Kamalkannan shot at Ms. Rajeshwari with a country-made pistol, she said.

The others arrested are A. Sudhakar (27), a mechanic from Chittoor in Andhra Pradesh, who had allegedly made the extortion calls, and Loganathan (25) and Shakthi (22), both from Vellore. The police have seized three country-made pistols, 18 live rounds of ammunition and four empty cases from the arrested. The case was detected by a team led by Assistant Commissioner of Police (Yeshwanthpur) Prathap Singh and comprised Peenya inspector Rangaswamy, Hebbal inspector S. Badarinath, Peenya sub-inspector P.S. Raju and staff Sanjeevaiah, Nagaraj Gowda, Rajanna, Krishnappa and Abdul Rehman.

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