The Mangalore police have arrested seven persons, including some sharpshooters, for their alleged involvement in the firing near Kadri Park in Mangalore on May 26 and at the Airody Jewellery shop in Udupi on August 19.
The police gave the names of the arrested as Niraj Srivasatava (25) and Ali Hussain (22) from Gorakhpur in Uttar Pradesh, Amit Chaurasia (27) and Riyaz Khan (41) from Bihar, Devudas Shetty (44) and Vinod Kulal from Mangalore. Puttuswamy (44), an alleged associate of Bannanje Raja lodged in Mysore Prison, has also been named as an accused. The police have seized two pistols, a revolver, two cars, two motorcycles, and two mobile phones.
On May 26, two motorcycle-borne men reportedly shot at real estate developer Suresh Bhandary's car, just as he got into the vehicle after finishing his evening walk. On August 19, two masked men reportedly entered Airody Jewellers and one of them fired three rounds from his pistol. Commissioner of Police Seemant Kumar Singh said the sharpshooters and the motorcycle rider were involved in the two incidents. But he refused to specify their role. Mr. Singh said the police had not ruled out involvement of Bannenje Raja in the incident. “We just did not have clear idea about the persons involved in the incident,” he said. Just after firing, Bhandary had told the police that he had received a call from Raja two years ago demanding Rs. 2 crore.
Based on the inputs from the Uttar Pradesh police and the State Intelligence wing, the special police team caught the six accused from a hideout in the city. Mr. Singh said the city police worked in an organised way with the Uttar Pradesh police and State Intelligence wing to trace the accused who were a part of an organised gang. Mr. Singh said local people had helped the accused in providing shelter and giving inputs about the target and their movements. Mr. Singh said the sharpshooters had made use of sophisticated country-made weapons, which, according to the accused, had been procured from Siwan in Bihar. A Mangalore police team will visit Bihar to find the place from where the accused had procured the weapons. They would be searching for Javed alias Ajay from Bihar, who was said to be involved in the two cases.
The arrest addressed the concerns of people over the extortion calls they had been receiving. As many as four such calls had been made in the last two months, he said..
