Bengaluru: In a major embarrassment to the Karnataka police, a police inspector posted in CID has led a gang of robbers in his police jeep and robbed ₹ 20 lakh from two youths from Kerala, who had come to the city for business purpose.
This is the second such incident in a week where the Karnataka police are in the news for wrong reasons after a three member team led by woman sub-inspector Anitha was trapped in Rajasthan while trying to extort ₹ 2 lakh from a person to save him from a dowry case registered in Bengaluru.
The robbery incident took place on Thursday evening, when the Kerala youths were staying at a lodge at Madivala. Four people, identifying themselves as CID police, barged into the room and checked for their belongings. Seeing the money, they threatened the youths that they would be arrested as the money was being brought to Bengaluru for laundering purposes. One of them showed them the ID of Mahesh Kanakagiri and asked the youths to come out and meet the inspector.
When the two came down, the inspector was sitting inside the police jeep and asked them to cooperate with the investigation. The four `seized' the money and asked them to come and meet them later in the office.
Soon after the jeep left, the youths grew suspicious and went to Madiwala police station and lodged a complaint. When the four youths had barged into their rooms, one of them had started recording the entire process in a hidden camera. The Madiwala police realised that the jeep was a real police jeep and belonged to CID.
Based on the video, the police identified the four as Harris, Kupendra, Shafi and Shaani and the inspector Mahesh Kanakagiri belonged to their own department and was working with CID. He had shown his department ID for robbery.
The Madiwala police swung into action and managed to arrest Kupendra and recover the money robbed by the gang. Realising that they were exposed, the other four, including Mahesh Kanakagiri, have escaped.
Bengaluru City Police Commissioner Seemanth Kumar Singh said that the police are tracking the four accused and would be nabbing them soon. ``We have arrested one person, seized the jeep they used for robbery and also recovered the complete money. We need to arrest the four, which will be done soon,'' he added.
