BENGALURU: Three men robbed a private company employee on the pretext of dropping him in a cab on Sunday night. After the harrowing experience, the injured victim had to face further torture, as was forced to go from one police station to another as the police did not entertain his complaint. His son finally resorted to calling the police control room. Following this, RR Nagar police called him and registered a complaint on Monday.
The victim is Gangadharaiah (59), a resident of Nagarabavi, who works with a network service company.
A senior police officer said, “Gangadharaiah was waiting for a bus at 12.30 am on Sunday, when a cab approached him. In it were the accused, including the driver, and a fourth person who was a passenger. The driver told Gangadharaiah that the cab was heading towards Kengeri and they would drop him at Nagarbavi for Rs 50.”
Gangadharaiah said in his complaint that when he got into the cab, the three men forced the fourth man to get down at Laggere and purposely took a wrong route. When Gangadharaiah realised they were not going to Nagarabavi, he tried to open the door. However, the trio started to beat him and forced him to sit back down, threatening to kill him if he raised an alarm. They then robbed him of his gold ring, Rs 400 in cash and his debit card after forcing him to share its PIN. They got down near Hosakerehalli at an ATM and withdrew Rs 200, which was all that was left in the account. They also stole his mobile phone, and threatened him saying he should not tell anyone about the incident, especially the police.
The gang pushed Gangadharaiah out from the cab near Annapurneshwarinagar, before driving on. His son Santhosh said, “My father took the help of an auto driver to reach home. He was initially scared to tell us anything, but after repeated enquiries, he finally told us what happened. I took him to Annapurneshwarinagar police station where the police sub-inspector told us to go to Girinagar, where the accused withdrew the cash. We went to Girinagar, but were then asked to go to RR Nagar police station. Finally, I called the police control room and then the RR Nagar police called me back and filed the complaint. I was really upset at Annapurneshwarinagar police, who behaved as if it was a trivial matter. They even told us that such robbery cases were usually not solved.”
Meanwhile, a senior police officer from the South Division said, “When the victim approached Girinagar police station, inspector Siddaliangaiah assisted the victim and sent an ASI along with him to reach RR Nagar police station. They took over the case as the victim’s house falls under RR Nagar police station limits. The inspector assured them that the police would find the accused as they had withdrawn money from a nearby ATM, which had a CCTV camera.”
The inspector at Annapurneshwari police station said, “I learnt about the incident early in the morning. The case had already been filed with RR Nagar police by then. I will verify whether our staff responded to the victim in a negative way, and give clear instructions to not repeat such behaviour.”