BENGALURU: The Bannerghatta police, who are probing the case where an electrical contractor’s right arm was chopped off, on Saturday opened fire at one of the accused when he tried to escape. The contractor’s ex-lover Jayalakshmi, a police constable, was also arrested for allegedly giving supari to carry out the attack. The arrested include Kumar (45), a habitual offender, his son Anand (23) and his friend Saravana Kumar.
On Tuesday, Jayalakshmi, along with the contractor Ravish, had gone to a temple when the latter was attacked by three men. His right arm was chopped off and taken away. On Saturday, police took one of the accused, Shravanakumar alias Mental (22), a habitual offender, for spot inspection (mahazar) when he tried to escape by attacking police constable Siddalingaswamy by strangling him. Deputy SP S K Umesh, who noticed this, opened fire in the air to warn him. When Shravanakumar did not heed to the warning, Umesh shot him in the leg to rescue the constable.
A senior police officer said that during investigation, Jayalakshmi B, a constable attached to V V Puram traffic police station, revealed that she was being harassed by Ravish. Jayalakshmi and Ravish were in a relationship before she married another person. Ravish, who came to know that she had applied for divorce from her husband, started pursuing her again. Though Jayalakshmi had told him to stay away, Ravish did not listen and was contacting her often. Upset over this, she decided to teach him a lesson and hired the attackers.
Jayalakshmi, on Tuesday, asked Ravish to take her to Bannerghatta forest to roam around. She then contacted the other accused and informed them about their whereabouts. Soon after they reached the temple pond, the accused came there and chopped off Ravish’s right arm and took it away with them. Jayalakshmi raised an alarm on the pretext of helping Ravish and told Bannerghatta police that three unidentified men attacked him and she was unhurt in the incident.
Based on the information revealed by Jayalakshmi, one of the accused Shravanakumar, who had chopped off the arm, was nabbed early on Saturday and was taken to the crime scene around 4.30pm. He had thrown the arm and Ravish’s mobile in a pit in the forest. When police were trying to recover the arm, Shravanakumar tried to escape.Ravish is now recovering in a private hospital but it is unlikely that doctors can re-attach his arm.
Rs 1.5L supari
Kumar had taken Rs 15,000 as advance from Jayalakshmi to attack Ravish. The total amount decided upon for the attack was `1.5 lakh. Kumar, a resident of Kalasipalya, met Jayalakshmi at Basappa Circle when she was on duty. She came to know that he is a habitual offender and gave him supari to attack Ravish.