The incident occurred when Muthaiah was travelling from Bellary to his native place in Davangere in his car, since the weekend was a closed government holiday. After completing his work on Friday he left office at 7 pm in Bellary and was nearing Toranagatte at around 9.20 pm when he encountered huge stones stacked on the road.
The driver of the car Sridhar got down to remove the stones when four armed persons attacked both Sridhar and DCF Muthaiah. They tied Muthaiah’s hands and legs and threatened to garrotte him with a twisted towel and demanded money. They first took Rs 50,000 from his brief case and demanded more.
They then instructed the driver at knife-point to drive towards Kudligi, near Bellary. After travelling about 100 km via Sandur they made the car to stop near a field and dragged Muthaiah into the field, demanding that he get someone to deliver Rs one lakh to the spot, failing which they threatened to kill him.
Muthaiah then called Sandur range forest officer Patil to send Rs one lakh with his driver. Sridhar then went to Sandur and obtained Rs one lakh from Patil and returned and handed it over to the abductors.
They then brought the two in the same car to the spot near Toranagatte where they were picked up and left the two after deflating the tyres. The abductors have taken the two mobile phones that Muthaiah was carrying.
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