JOIN USA seven-man gang of armed robbers struck at a house in Thambuchetty Palya on the City outskirts early Monday morning and brutally attacked a software engineer.
Syed Askari Mehdi is battling for life at a private hospital. His brother and father too sustained severe injuries.
The thugs, who broke open the main door of the house with levers at around 2:45 am, were at the Mehdis’ house for nearly two hours, the family members said.
They made away with 150 gram gold, mobile phones, a motorcycle and a Maruti WagonR car.
Azra Khatoon, the daughter of S Q Mehdi, a retired armyman, was woken up by some noise. When she reached the door to check what was happening, the robbers subdued her, gagged and tied her up, and proceeded to raid the other rooms.
Mehdi’s wife Syeda Thezib Fatima, and a relative, Syeda Zeenat Fatima, who had come from Lucknow to visit the family, were also assaulted, tied up and locked in a room along with Azra Khatoon.
Hearing the commotion downstairs, Mehdi, 67, and his younger son, Syed Wasi Mohammed, 25, rushed downstairs.
Both were assaulted with lethal weapons. Badly injured in the head, they too were pushed into another room and tied up.
The gang moved upstairs and entered the master bedroom where Syed Askari Mehdi, 30, a software engineer employed at Misys, was sleeping.
Alerted by the noise, Syed Askari tried to defend himself but was attacked by five men who struck him in the head with a masonry hammer and stabbed with a large knife in the shoulder. Askari collapsed.
Once they had left, Azra Khatoon succeeded in freeing herself and then untied the rest of the family members. She rushed for help to her cousin, Azghar Faraz’s house located 200 metres away.
Faraz said he was stunned by the attack. “By the time I arrived, everything was over; the house was completely ransacked and my cousins seriously injured and lying in a pool of blood. We immediately rushed them to hospital,” he said.
A case has been registered at the Avalahalli police station.
Travel plan postponed
Mehdi was scheduled to leave for Iran on an official project. However, his trip was postponed due to a last minute delay in getting visa. The dacoits smashed his head with a huge masonry hammer and stabbed him on the shoulder.
Doctors treating him told Deccan Herald that Mehdi has sustained four fractures on the skull and the impact of the attack has caused a haemorrhage.
A team of doctors from M S Ramaiah Hospital operated on Mehdi for about four hours. Hospital sources said the surgery was successful and his condition stable.
He has been shifted to the ICU and put on a ventilator. Suhin Sheik, resource manager at Misys, where Syed worked, recounted that he had been the chief troubleshooter in the office and had been voted the best employee of the year by his peers for the past two years.