BENGALURU: A co-passenger offered biscuits and chocolate laced with drugs to a man while travelling in bus from Mysore to Bengaluru on Sunday. The man who ate a biscuit started feeling drowsy, and he got down from the bus on Mysore Road in Deepanjali Nagar. The stranger on the pretext of helping him, snatched his gold chain and escaped. The victim later complained to police.
The victim Ramesh, 49, is a resident of Ganesh Block in Nandini Layout and an employee of a motor vehicle manufacturing firm in Bidadi. His gold chain was worth around Rs 1 lakh weighing 30 grams with a pendant.
According to a complaint filed by Ramesh’s son Sharath, 21, his father had been to Mysuru to see his sister. On Sunday, around 4 pm, Ramesh got into a bus heading to Bengaluru, and a person in his 30s sat next to him. On crossing Channapatna, the co-passenger offered Ramesh some biscuits and a chocolate. On consuming that, Ramesh fell asleep in a few minutes. “All that my father remembers is that he regained semi-consciousness when the bus was near BHEL on Mysore Road around 7.30 pm. When his stop arrived, my father was unable to get down as he was drowsy and the man sitting next him, on the pretext of helping him down from the bus, snatched his gold chain,” Sharath said.
“My father asked him to return it, but the man made him run around the Metro pillar and then escaped as my father collapsed on the road. My father called me over phone and asked me to pick him from BHEL. Around 8.15 pm I went to the spot and he was still not able to get up. I took him to Byatarayanapura police station to file a complaint. The police asked me to first take my father to hospital and file complaint the next morning. I rushed him to a private hospital in Malleswaram, where doctors treated him in the ICU,” Sharath said.
The doctors at the hospital sent a medico legal case (MLC) report to the jurisdictional police who alerted Byatarayanapura police as the incident had taken place there. When the police came, doctors informed them that Ranesh was not in a condition to give a statement. Hence, Sharath filed the complaint.
The doctors reportedly informed Sharath that Ramesh had consumed biscuits and chocolate mixed with a couple of drugs including opium. They are yet to give a report to the police.
An investigating officer on Wednesday said, “We have learn’t that the miscreant spoke to him in Telugu. We suspect him to be a professional pick-pocket, but mixing drugs in snacks is strange. We have taken up a case of theft under IPC section 379 and causing hurt by means of poison under IPC section 328. CCTV footage surrounding the spot including Metro station are being analysed to get clues on the miscreant.”