African community in city cries foul, says it's murder

African community members in the city have termed death of Ifeanyi Madu alias Nwa Jesus as “murder in cold blood”.

The city police said that Madu, a Nigerian national died after he fell from a bike when they were chasing him and his friend for peddling drugs, early on Monday near Byrathi Cross in East Bengaluru.

“We have a lot of suspicion in this case that convinces us that the Nigerian national was murdered and the police are making it appear as if it was a traffic accident,” Nigerian Community president in Bengaluru, Igwe Elvis Ohachosim wrote in the letter to the Nigerian Embassy.

“According to our information, the deceased was seen in the evening of March 12, 2017 with policemen pulling him here and there. Thereafter they didn't know where they took him, (sic)" read the letter.

Flanked by his community members, a  24-year-old Nigerian who was with Madu when the police picked up the latter, said that his friend was “alive when he was caught by those men”. The reluctant youth who was injured on his right knee and wearing torn jeans, still appeared to be in a state of shock and  refused to be named.

The incident happened when he and Madu were returning home on a red Honda Activa. They lived in a rented house on 4th Cross, Byrathi.

Around 10 pm on Sunday a group of men in civil dress who were wielding canes followed them on bikes.  Madu stopped the bike near Green Supermarket to allow them to go. “I stopped the bike thinking that the men on bikes coming behind would pass by us. But they stopped their bikes and surrounded us. A few of them claimed that they were police and caught Madu. Somehow I managed to escape. I fell down while running,” the youth said.

He also said the bike belonged to him. Both had just come from Mysuru on Sunday morning. 

According to him, Madu lived in Tiruppur in Tamil Nadu from where he would bring clothes and footwear and sell them to his community members in the city.

When community members went to identify the body they were shocked to see blood still oozing out from Madu’s head in the back. There were no other noticeable injuries on the body. 

“It clearly does not look like an accident,” said Elvis, pointed out that there were no scratches on his body other than the fresh wound behind his head. The police were not providing any satisfactory answers to their questions, he claimed. Two platoons of KSRP personnel have been deployed in Kothanur as precautionary measure.