Karnataka   

Police yet to crack several shooting cases Law & order

The prowess of Bangalore police in investigating incidents of shooting has come under a cloud.

Even five months after Madhusudhan, proprietor of an event management company, was shot dead at his office in Indiranagar, the police are still groping in the dark to trace the assailants.

After two men walked into Madhusudhan’s office and shot at him on July 10, the police initially suspected that he was murdered in connection with a dispute over the ownership of a restaurant on Queen’s Road. Investigations later indicated that it was not the motive behind the killing.

The police also suspected the involvement of the proprietor of a private security agency, who had written a letter to Madhusudhan’s wife stating that his Karnataka Liberation Front was behind the murder. As the security agency owner was in possession of a licensed revolver, it was subjected to ballistic examination to find out if Madhusudhan was shot with the same weapon. But experts determined that a different weapon was used, a senior officer said.

In fact, several cases of shooting reported over the years have still remained unsolved. The police are also yet to crack some daring robberies of 2001-02, in which criminals had shot at their victims.

The most important of these cases is the murder of a senior executive of the then JTM mobile phone services, Ramesh. He was shot dead in front of his house in Indiranagar in 1998.

Though almost a decade has passed, the police have neither figured out the motive behind the murder nor arrested the shooters. Police teams that had been to Mumbai, Hyderabad and Mangalore for investigation returned empty-handed.

In another sensational case that hit the headlines, armed men who shot dead a jeweller, Sumerchand Surana, on Wheelers Road in Fraser Town police station limits in 2000 are also still at large.

The police say that these cases are among the several murders that have remained unsolved for lack of clues. It is only a coincidence that firearms were used in these incidents, they say.

On the other hand, underworld elements who were involved in shooting incidents in the city have remained untraced for years. In one such incident that took place at a bar near Pallavi cinema in Sampangiramnagar in 1994, the four main accused from the Mumbai underworld have not been caught.

In what is known as the K.G. Halli shooting case (1998) involving Mumbai gangsters who were suspected to have links with Pakistan’s ISI, the prime accused, Rasheed Malbari, and his associates are still absconding. Those who were arrested in the case have jumped bail.

Bannanje Raja, prime accused in the Durga Travels shootout case in Upparpet police station limits, has fled the country.

The police say that as the accused/suspects in most of these cases are non-locals and had visited the city only once or twice on a specific assignment, it was difficult to trace them. Either an exclusive team of investigators should be entrusted with these cases or the Organised Crime (Prevention) Cell of the City Crime Branch (CCB) should be asked to take over the investigations, says a senior police officer.

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