BENGALURU: A shooting incident on the city outskirts on Wednesday afternoon took political colour with the victim alleging that the accused was threatening him to support another party. However, the accused claimed that he opened fire in the air in self-defence. The incident was reported at Kodahalli near Hoskote in Bangaluru Rural district.
Speaking to The New Indian Express, Ramaiah (65) claimed that he was a BJP supporter and was campaigning since last week. “There has been an ongoing feud between us and Janardhan alias Johny, who supports Congress, from the last 2-3 years. I was in Hoskote to buy cattle feed. Around 2 pm, Janardhan and his father Prakash came on a two-wheeler and stopped me. They abused me for supporting BJP and threatened me of dire consequences if I don’t support Congress. When I refused, they hurled filthy abuses and threatened that they will shoot me. I didn’t know they had a firearm. So I asked them to shoot me. Janardhan took out a firearm and pointed it at my head. I was shocked and ducked as he shot two round. The bullets hit a tree and I ran to save my life.”
Police said Janardhan called up the police station soon after the incident and informed them that the villagers tried to attack him and he had fired one round in the air from his licenced revolver to scare them. The ballistic experts too found only one cartridge at the scene of crime. “There are different versions of the story and we are corroborating statements,” police said. The probe so far has established that Janardhan’s father was not at the spot when the incident took place.
It is learnt Janardhan’s family is the only one in the village that supports Congress. “Ramaiah was working on Janardhan’s farm in the past, but he is not ready to admit it now,” police added.
Bengaluru Rural SP Bheemashankar Guled told TNIE that Janardhan had made a request that he was facing threat for life and a gunman should be provided to him. “He had also applied for exemption from depositing his licenced firearm owing to election code of conduct, citing threat to his life.”
It is also learnt that the police had advised him to not stay in the village for some days if he had high threat perception.