Bengaluru: In a swift move, the East Division police, less than 7 hours after the crime, apprehended a rowdy and his associate in the early hours of Wednesday in HBR Layout. The criminal had opened fire and killed another rowdy on Tuesday night. The shootouts were the result of a gang rivalry in Shivajinagar.
The police, who had increased their vigilance after the violence by putting up naakabandis and stringent vehicle checking, were attacked by the two men who were armed with pistols and daggers. The cops fired in the air before shooting the duo in the legs. The arrested men have been identified as Shabbir, 34, who shot and killed Parvez the previous night, and his henchman Barkat.
Head Constable Padmanabha, who is attached to the K.G. Halli police station, was attacked with a machete and daggers by the duo. He has been admitted to Dr. B.R. Ambedkar Medical College and Hospital. Both the accused, who had been shot in the leg by the cops, have also been admitted to the same hospital.
Gangs clash over hafta collection
The rivalry between the rowdy gangs was over monthly ‘hafta’ collection in Shivajinagar. The gangs had demarcated their areas and extracted ‘hafta’ from shopkeepers and autorickshaw drivers. One gang was led by Parvez, the right-hand man of another rowdy Pappu, in Shivajinagar. They were associates of the deceased rowdy, Idrees, who used to collect hafta near the Dargah area.
Shabbir and his associates were enraged when they discovered that auto drivers were giving hafta to Parvez’s gang. Shabbir and his associates – Jamshed, Sameer Bhas and Mazhar – were furious to learn that a man named Settu Bhai, who was running an autorickshaw parking lot, was giving Rs 5,000 as hafta to Parvez’s gang. Recently Shabbir had approached Settu Bhai and demanded Rs 10,000 as hafta from the next month, but Settu Bhai objected. Shabbir had even threatened a relative Syed Tousif and Parvez would be eliminated if his gang interfered with them.
The murder
Around 8.45 pm on Tuesday, six people on three motorcycles armed with guns, machetes and daggers arrived near the Hazrat Kambal Posh (HKP) Dargah where Parvez stayed, shot him in the chest and injured two of his henchmen, Wajid and Asif. They fled the spot after committing the crime. Parvez’s men rushed him to a hospital, but he died later.
Swift action by police
The East division police flashed ‘alert’ messages about the crime to all its police stations. Security and vehicle checks were put in place. The cops increased their naakabandis with stringent vehicle checking in the area. Early on Wednesday morning, at a checkpoint in Hennur near Sarayapalaya bus-stand, the police spotted a motorbike with two men on it, moving around suspiciously. They took a roundabout route towards Govindapura in Nagawara. The cops flashed a wireless message and the bike-borne duo was stopped at a checkpoint in HBR Layout.
On seeing the police, one of them pulled out a pistol and aimed at them. When the police learnt that the men they were confronting were the killers of the rowdy the previous night, policemen Padmanabha and Shaju Antony got into a gun battle with them. K.G. Halli Inspector Srinivas fired in the air once to warn the duo, after which the police shot them in the legs.
Padmanabha and the two injured accused were rushed to the hospital. The cops have also seized the firearm, daggers and the two-wheeler from the accused. The police are now on the lookout for four other associates of Shabbir who were present when Parvez was shot dead.
Parvez was a resident of Shatabnagar in D.J. Halli and was listed as a rowdy by the Shivajinagar police in 2001 after cases of attempt to murder and other charges were filed against him.
The accused, Shabbir, is a rowdy at Byappanahalli police station. He has cases against him for attempts to murder, rape, assault, kidnapping and other charges and the cops listed him a rowdy in 2008.
