BENGALURU: Robberies, harassment, molestation, mugging and murder - these are crimes the Bengaluru City Police deal with on a daily basis. And while these are all extremely serious crimes, every once in a while, the police have to deal with some extremely odd complaints.
City Express spoke to deputy police commissioners (DCP) from different zones in the city, who tell us some of the strangest cases they have come across, those that they can’t seem to forget.
(With inputs from Ganga Devi)
False custody
It’s common for people to panic when the police knock on their doors, but in this case, officers from the West zone DCP’s office, would panic each time a particular woman walked in.
The woman in question, aged around 35-40 years, would come in hurling abuses, claiming that M Krishnappa, the Karnataka state housing minister, is her husband, and that Priya Krishna, the MLA, is her son. She claimed to have married Krishnappa a long time back.
According to the police, the woman is a resident of Rajarajeshwari Nagar, and for the last two years, she has been coming to the DCP’s office regularly, and asking them to send the minister and the MLA into her custody. In these two years, she has also managed to get the numbers of police officials, including M N Anucheth’s, DCP (west). The police get calls late at night from the woman, and officials who have spoken to her suspect that she’s drunk.
A police official tells us, “This woman calls at odd hours of the night and my wife always has a lot of questions for me after.” Officials say that each time they see her entering the station, they go out for a cup of tea just to avoid her. “She seems to be suffering with some kind of illness, so there’s no option but to listen to her abuses,” the official says, adding, “We will try to contact her family members, and if someone responds, we will try and make sure she gets treated.”
Stalked by the government
One time, a well-dressed man walked into Labhu Ram, DCP (north), office, claiming that intelligence agencies from the central government were tracking him. This individual, who said he was a resident of Malleswaram, brought with him a well-written complaint letter, in which he wrote that his phone was being tapped and that people were following him everywhere he went. The first question they asked him was why he thought he was being stalked.
The man replied saying that he had many secret documents which he could not disclose. The police were starting to lose interest, but when the man said he was feeling extremely scared, they consoled him and said they’d look into the matter - mostly just to get him to leave. “A few days later, he came back saying he was being tracked by the Bengaluru Police themselves. By now, we knew he was dealing with some kind of mental condition. We asked him to come down to the station everyday so we could counsel him. We would give him tea and biscuits during each session,” a senior police officer of the north division who does not wish to be named, tells us. The source says that the man eventually stopped coming to station.
Tall tales
Ajay Hilory, DCP (east) says that one case that amuses him is of a man who walked into his office claiming that criminal gangs were trying to recruit him. The man said that while he was in a graveyard, two people came up to him and handed him two lakh in cash, asking him to keep it safe. When he came to the station, the officers, not knowing what to make of the story, asked him to go home. A few days later, the man returned, saying that when he went back to the graveyard, he was approached by the same people, who now had brought a girl along with them too.
This time, they handed him some documents, which he claimed held some some top-secret government information. He requested that the police track his phone so that they could find out who these people are. As it turns out, the man owed money to many people and was looking for police protection. He had cooked up this tale just to make sure the police knew of his whereabouts. Hilory says that when they uncovered this, they asked him to leave immediately.
A milky affair
Another case Naryana recalls, really left him baffled. Residents of KR Puram would constantly file complaints saying that despite paying for their milk, it wasn’t being delivered to them. The milkman also assured them that he was doing his duty on time. When the police looked at CCTV footage, they found a woman stealing newspapers and milk packets and driving off.
They discovered that she was well-educated woman, successful woman, who lived with her two kids. When the woman was taken to custody and questioned, she said she was committing the crime “for fashion.” The officers there say they crack up every time they talk about it. Narayana says that in the midst of all their serious cases, these rare occurrences provide them with that much-needed comic relief.
‘So drunk, I forgot to escape’
A woman walked into the M Narayana, DCP of Whitefield’s office, claiming that her chain had been snatched. The culprit was soon identified with the help of CCTV cameras. But when the police looked closely at the footage, they noticed something odd. A rally was taking place at the scene of the crime in Vignan Nagar, and amid the crowd, the police saw a familiar face – that of the culprit – who appeared to be shouting slogans at the rally.
When the culprit was caught, he admitted that he was so drunk, he forgot to escape, says Narayana, adding that this incident always makes him think back and laugh heartily.