A gang of masked assailants barged into a bank in upmarket Koramangala, Bengaluru on July 19 afternoon and hacked to death a rowdy-sheeter who had reportedly turned a new leaf, and worked as a civil contractor.
The deceased has been identified as Joseph Babli, 38, a resident of Adugodi.
Babli had been to the Union Bank, Koramangala, with his wife on a bike on Monday afternoon. As he parked his bike in front of the bank, he noticed the assailants and ran into the bank in a bid to save his life. However, the attackers — said to be around six of them, all masked up and armed with weapons — barged into the bank and hacked him to death.
“Customers and officials feared it was a bid to rob the bank and rushed inside to save themselves. It was all over in a matter of a minute or so. The attackers rushed out and fled the scene on bikes,” said a senior police official.
Joseph Babli
Srinath Mahadev Joshi, DCP (South - East), said they had recorded the statement of the wife of the deceased and others at the bank who were eyewitnesses to the attack. “We are analysing CCTV footage from the bank and other images from the area,” he said.
Meanwhile, police sources said that Joseph Babli was a rowdy-sheeter at Adugodi Police Station, with murder and attempt to murder cases against him, and had spent a term in jail. However, he reportedly turned a new leaf in 2011, after which there has been no case registered against him.
“We suspect an old rivalry with another rowdy gang from Wilson Garden might be behind the murder. We have some leads and are working on them. We are also probing whether he had any financial disputes in the civil contracts he had taken up and whether anyone prompted his old rivals in the hit,” a senior official said.
