BENGALURU: Three friends started their day by stealing a bike and then a mobile phone. When they were trying to flee from the phone victim who gave them a chase, they literally hit a roadblock. Their bike crashed into a barricade around a pothole. While the rider paid with his life, the other two on pillion sustained severe injuries.
The deceased is Sulthan Pasha (21) and the injured are Syed Suhail (24) and Shahid Khan (23). The crash took place at Nagarbhavi Main Road near Byatarayanapura at 5.15am on Thursday.
According to a police officer from Byatarayanapura traffic police station, the trio had stolen a bike that was parked outside a house in JJ Nagar around 3.30am. The friends then made a stop at a stall in Chandra Layout for a cuppa before they came across Guraiah, a cab driver.
Guraiah, a resident of Jnanabharathi, had just filled his fuel tank at a petrol station and had parked his car nearby before heading to Mysuru Road. Pasha and his friends approached Guraiah on the pretext of asking an address. They asked for his phone to make a call. When Guraiah refused to give the phone, the men threatened him with a knife, snatched his phone and fled on the bike, police said.
Guraiah, however, did not give up and chased the gang in his cab. While passing KIMCO junction on Mysuru Road, the trio failed to notice a barricade kept around a pothole and Pasha lost control of the overspeeding bike and crashed. Pasha died on the spot while his friends are recovering in Victoria Hospital. The youngsters are all residents of Haleguddadahalli and working in a car workshop on JC Road.
The injured, however, have a different story to tell. The police officer said that the two injured youths are now alleging that the cabbie rammed his vehicle into their bike. “We are investigating
all the angles. The bike belongs to one Chand Khan, a resident of Arasath Nagar. The bike is now in police custody,”he said.
Pasha’s father Akram, an auto driver, told Express that the cab driver was responsible for his son’s death. “He could have called the police control room and filed a case if my son had snatched his phone. He has cooked up a story about robbery. Let police go through CCTV footage and take action against the cab driver. My son was innocent. The bike belongs to his friends. He was not involved in any
illegal activity,” Akram added.