Bangalore, April 21, 2013:
Restaurant manager seeks help from troublemakers’ rival gang
A drunken brawl over a trivial issue at a bar on Saturday night turned into a gang war between two groups and ended in a double murder in Mahalakshmi Layout.
The bar manager called up a rowdy of the rival gang to control the group that created nuisance, leading to the murder of two members of the group.
The matter took another twist on Sunday night, when the prime suspect, Yuvaraj alias Babu, sustained injuries on his legs when a police inspector opened fire at him at BHEL Layout in Nandini Layout.
Babu, 26, a resident of Parimalanagar and Dharaneesh, 24, a resident of Someshwaranagar, are the dead. The Nandini Layout police detained at least 10 men in connection with the incident by Sunday morning.
Babu had recently discontinued his engineering course at Don Bosco College and was working as a ‘writer’ at the nearby RMC Yard. Dharaneesh was his colleague at the Yard.
On Saturday evening, the two had gone to Vijaya Bar and Restaurant on Tent Road, along with four others. By 11.30 pm, all six were heavily drunk and a tiff broke out among them. One of them broke a liquor bottle and created a scene at the bar.
The bar manager, Rajesh alias Kemparaju, asked all of them to leave immediately. The group then had an ugly tiff with Rajesh and even assaulted him. After much nuisance, Rajesh was successful in pushing the group out of the bar.
As they were just a few yards away from the bar, the group was attacked by the rival gang of six members armed with lethal weapons. Babu and Dharaneesh, who were in an inebriated state, were hacked to death. The two also sustained stab injuries in the abdomen. The gang fled the scene. Two of the rival gang’s men suffered minor injuries. While Babu died on the spot, members of the public and his friends rushed Dharaneesh to a nearby hospital. He succumbed to his injuries late in the night. The bar downed its shutters and all its workers fled.
Case cracked within hours
Cops from the Nandini Layout police station, just half-a-kilometre away from the scene of crime, rushed to the spot and apprehended a few men and questioned them. Based on their inputs, the victims and some of the attackers were identified.
The police broke open the shutters of Vijaya Bar and examined the footage captured by CCTV cameras. Police said they saw the bar cashier and manager Kemparaju calling up somebody as the tiff broke out.
Police tracked down Kemparaju and apprehended him in the early hours of Sunday. He told the police that the group created a nuisance and had assaulted him. He also confessed to calling up Yuvaraj alias Babu, a notorious rowdy of Rajagopalanagar and a close friend of his, for protection from the group.
By the time the gang left the bar, Yuvaraj, along with his henchmen Sridhar and others, came there and attacked the group that had assaulted Kemparaju. Babu and Dharaneesh were killed in the attack, police said.
Police are questioning the bar owner Baiyanna. A manhunt has been launched for Yuvaraj and his aides.
Residents and shopkeepers said the bar was the cause of much unrest in the area. They said according to the rules, bars have to down their shutters by 11 pm.
But, this bar was kept open till almost 1 am every day. The bar supplies liquor through a side door, they said.
Cop shoots at prime suspect
Yuvaraj, 23, a resident of Rajagopalanagar, sustained injuries on his left knee and right thigh, when Yeshwantpur inspector Purushottam fired at him with his service revolver on Sunday. He was shifted to Kempamba Chaluvaraya General Hospital in Malleswaram. Two constables Raghavendra and Umesh were also injured when Yuvaraj attacked them with a dagger. They are being treated at a private hospital.
“A police team headed by Purushottam and the two constables apprehended Yuvaraj at BHEL Layout at around 7.30 pm when he was moving on a two-wheeler. The police directed him to surrender, but he abandoned the bike and fled. He took out a dagger and attacked the constables when they were chasing him. Purushottam used his service revolver and fired two rounds, injuring Yuvaraj,” DCP (North Division) S N Siddaramappa told Deccan Herald.
Yuvaraj is allegedly involved in a total of nine cases including attempt to murder, dacoity, kidnap and extortion in Peenya, Rajagopalanagar, Nandini Layout and Mahalakshmi Layout police limits. The police booked an attempt to murder case against Yuvaraj. Malleswaram sub-division ACP Abdul Sattar G will probe the matter.
