Southern States - Karnataka-Bangalore   

Impasse in probe of shootout cases

By K.V. Subramanya

THE PROWESS of the City police in investigating sensational shootout cases has come under a cloud. The recent robberies in which the criminals had shot at their victims as well as similar cases of the past have not been solved.

The case of shootout at a bar near Pallavi Cinema in Sampangiramnagar Police Station limits in 1994 is yet to be solved. While one person was arrested in this connection, the four main accused from the Mumbai underworld are at large.

After relator, Subbaraju, and a chartered accountancy student, Dinesh Bansali, were shot dead in separate incidents in January 2001, the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Central), Gopal B. Hosur, directed the Sampangiramnagar Police to follow up the 1994 shootout case. But nothing has come out of the probe.

A senior executive of the then JTM mobile phone services, Ramesh, was shot dead in front of his house in the posh Indiranagar locality in 1998. Though almost five years have passed, police have neither figured out the motive behind the killing nor arrested the accused. Police teams that had been to various places including Mumbai, Hyderabad, and Mangalore to investigate the case returned empty handed.

In what is known as the K.G. Halli shootout case (1998) involving the Mumbai gangsters who were suspected to have links with the Pakistan's ISI, the prime accused, Rasheed Malbari, and his associates are still absconding. Even those arrested in the case are now out on bail and have been evading the court.

Investigations into the stray bullet case of Fraser Town, which hit the headlines during the first quarter of the 2000, revealed that Jalaluddin and others, accused in the K.G. Halli shootout case were involved in this case too. However, police could not nab anyone in this connection, though they made a few visits to Mumbai.

The police could not apprehended Ravi Poojary and Rohit Verma, sharpshooters and close aides of the Mumbai mafia lord, Chotta Rajan, who had allegedly gunned down a hotelier, Mohan Kotian, on the outskirts of the City a few years ago. While Verma was later killed in a shootout in Bangkok, Poojary is said to be abroad.

The Durga Travels shootout case has also not been solved with the main accused, Bannanje Raja, who is wanted by police in the Seena murder case also, fleeing the country.

Though more than three years have passed since Sumerchand Surana, a jeweller, was shot dead and robbed of gold ornaments in Fraser Town Police Station limits, police have not been able to nab the criminals.

While police come out with various reasons for not cracking these cases and arresting the accused, the fact remains that adequate follow-up action has not been initiated in these matters.

Police claim that as the accused are non-locals and had visited the City only once or twice on a specific assignment, it was difficult to nab them. In many cases, though the accused have even fled the country, no action has been taken by police to secure them as was done in the case of the underworld don, Muthappa Rai.

Some senior police officers opine that with new cases coming up, the investigating officers have not been pursuing the earlier cases with the same sincerity they showed initially.

The police top-brass should accord priority to these cases and regularly follow-up the matter with the investigating officers and fix responsibility and accountability on them to expedite the investigation, a DCP suggests. The officers who were investigating these shootout cases have been transferred over the years. The new officers, as sources say, are not fully aware of the case details.

Either an exclusive team of investigators should be entrusted with these cases or the newly created organised crime cell of the City Crime Branch (CCB) should be asked to take over the investigations in order to nab the accused.

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