Thief jumps to death from 2nd floor of police station

A habitual offender jumped to death from the second floor of Amruthahalli police station during interrogation on Thursday, allegedly over police torture.

Sathish alias Sketch Manja (35) was rushed to Columbia Asia Hospital in Hebbal where he was declared brought dead.

According to the police, the incident happened around 12 noon when Sathish was taken to the second floor of the police station for questioning.

He was brought to the station around 9 am in connection with a house burglary case.

Around four crime staff were questioning him when he suddenly ran out of the room and leaped to his death.

The police suspect he would have jumped to escape, while the crowd gathered down said he tried to commit suicide.

Sathish had committed theft at the house of a government employee and escaped with the booty two months ago. Involved in more than 20 burglary cases in and around the city, he was earlier arrested by Tilak Nagar police, Kodigehalli police and also Basaveshwarnagar police.

Sathish is unmarried. During investigation, he had given false information about his whereabouts.

“The body has been shifted to a government hospital for postmortem and we are trying to find his family members,” police said.

He stayed alone in the city and used to shift houses in Bagalakote, Ramanagar and Magadi to hoodwink cops.

Senior police officers maintained there was no police harassment and that an unnatural death case was registered at the Amruthahalli police station.

However, city police commissioner T Suneel Kumar has instructed the deputy commissioner of police (Northeast Division) to submit a detailed report. Since it is a custodial death, the case will be transferred to the CID, he said.