'Kingpin' of attack on school body functionary hunted down

Seven more suspects, including the alleged mastermind, have been arrested for the attempted murder of an office-bearer of a private schools’ association in North Bengaluru in July.

D Shashi Kumar, general secretary of the Associated Managements of Private Schools in Karnataka (KAMS), was assaulted by a gang of three as he drove back home to Muthyalanagar around 9 pm on July 29. While Kumar suffered injuries to different parts of the body, he had the presence of mind to grab his licensed pistol from the car’s dashboard and pull it on the assailants, scaring them away.

Police cracked the case in early August by tracking down five suspects but the mastermind remained elusive. He has been arrested now.

According to the jurisdictional Jalahalli police, the attack was masterminded by one Laggere Ravi, having aliases Ravi Kumar and RTI Ravi, who is part of a private school parents’ association.

Ravi and six other suspects — Manohar alias Manu, Vijay Kumar alias Viji, Subhash alias Kariya, Srinivas alias ‘Mental’ Seena, Ganesha and Chinna Arasu — were arrested from their “hideouts” in villages near the Sathyamangalam Forest in Tamil Nadu.

Two country-made pistols, three empty magazines, a car, two motorbikes, two longs, a machete, a folding knife and a scythe were recovered from their possession, Jalahalli police inspector Gururaj A said.

Police found out that Ravi had rented a house just 30 feet away from Kumar’s home to plot the attack, which took six months to materialise, and the gang tailed Kumar daily.

Police said Ravi claimed to be the president of the Karnataka Vidyarthi Jagruti Vedike and a parents rights activist. He extorted money from private schools but Kumar put a spanner in his enterprise by taking legal action against him. Ravi vowed to “eliminate” Kumar and instil fear in school owners. He roped in Dilip, a murder accused he had befriended in prison, for the hitjob.

According to police, Ravi has a criminal record that goes back to 2009. He was named in a suicide abetment case by Magadi Road police in 2013, in cheating and death threat cases by RR Nagar police in 2016, in assault and extortion cases in 2017 and in attempted murder and kidnap cases by Vijayanagar police in 2019.

The last case prompted the police to book him under the stringent Karnataka Control of Organised Crimes Act (KCOCA) but he got bail in November 2019.