RAJAHMUNDRY: It was a real-life enactment of the classic Hyderabadi mohavra (idiom): ‘‘Asmaan se tapka, anjur peh atka (dropped from the skies, got stuck on a date palm tree).
Remand prisoner Orugnati John Babu was being taken in a bus to Kovvur to face justice when he took off in a trice and jumped off the bus while it lumbered over the rail-cum-road bridge. He thought he was plunging into the Godavari and thence perhaps to freedom. But as ill-luck would have it, he landed not in the river, but on some iron rods and was literally left dangling in mid-air.
Entirely unamused, his police escort alerted AP Tourism Development Corporation (ATDC) officials who rushed a speedboat to that spot under the bridge. Sheepishly, John complied when asked to jump again, this time into the boat, and on to meet his fate.
John Babu, of Gudivada, is accused of murdering his mother. He had been remanded in the Central Jail. He spent some time in hospital for treatment but was brought back to jail recently.
Hours after his great escape came to nought, he explained to reporters that it was his brother and sister-in-law who killed his mother. He had only been falsely implicated. Depressed by the slur, he wanted to commit suicide and that really was the purpose of his dive into the Godavari, he claimed.
Traffic on the famous road-cum-rail bridge on the Godavari came to a standstill while John enacted his stirring saga.