Bengaluru: Three months ago, the police filed a C report and closed the case on the brutal attack on a woman in an ATM kiosk in N.R. Square in November 2013. The assailant was armed with a machete and an iron rod.
The 500-odd investigators who had worked on the case thought that it would remain unsolved.
However, the police in Bengaluru heaved a sight of relief on hearing that their counterparts in Andhra Pradesh had a suspect, Madhukar Reddy, in custody.
Senior police officers here are in touch with their counterparts in Andhra Pradesh to secure custody of the suspect.
During the three years since the attack took place on November 19, 2013, investigators here had revived the case thrice. They had formed 15 special teams, comprising as many as 500 police personnel, to track down the culprit. The investigation was supervised by three police commissioners.
A police officer, who was deployed in one of the special teams, recalled the pressure they were under to solve the case. "We literally checked each and every person moving suspiciously and even rounded up habitual offenders for detailed questioning, but could not get a lead on the attacker,” said the officer.
Another officer recounts how the incident triggered panic among the public. “The city police control room was flooded with calls from citizens reporting suspicious people in their neighbourhoods. Though at times we knew that the calls were a hoax, we followed up with each one. That was the pressure we were under,” another police officer added.
In 2015, outgoing police commissioner M.N. Reddi mentioned that his biggest regret was not solving the case.
