Armed men shot at and injured a shop owner in his shop in the city market area in Belagavi on Saturday night.
Rakesh Rupchand Jain (45), though survived the attack as the bullet grazed his skull, had to be rushed to hospital for emergency treatment.
His friends and shop owners in the area rushed him to the hospital at night. Doctors stopped the bleeding and gave him a dozen stitches on his scalp.
He is recovering, the police said.
Mr. Jain was in his wholesale Kirana shop on Math Galli when two unidentified men entered his shop at around 9.30 p.m. They said that they wanted to buy biscuits and demanded to see samples. When one of them was holding a box of biscuits, the other tried to pull down the shutters of the shop.
He brandished a revolver and demanded money from Mr. Jain. The startled shop owner did not respond immediately and the robber shot at him, as if to intimidate him. The bullet passed very near the victim’s head and in retaliation, Mr. Jain threw a box full of soap at the two men. The two men, as if unprepared to face such retaliation, pushed Mr. Jain to a corner, threw open the shutter and fled. A few minutes later, Mr. Jain realised that he had begun to bleed, as the bullet had grazed his skull.
The shop owner told the police that he suspected that there was a third person involved who was waiting in the street to alert the two men if he saw a policeman nearby. He remembers that the two persons who walked in were wearing masks.
Investigators said that they were collecting CCTV footage from nearby shops.
A case has been registered in the Market Police Station.
