College says bank robbery accused not its students

The Acharya Institute of Technology has denied that all the four accused in Monday’s bank robbery incident, in which a customer was killed, were its students. Investigations, however, show that they are students of the college.

“On coming to know that the accused were identified with our institution, we did a thorough search of all our records and did not find the said names,” said P R Savitha of the college.

Mahesh, head of the Department of Mechanical Engineering, also said the names did not figure in their admission records. Many of the students from the Mechanical Engineering Department Deccan Herald contacted could not identify the suspect. However, a few of them confirmed that one of the accused, Prem Kumar Sahu, was in the second year of Mechanical Diploma course.

Death mourned

On Tuesday, people in the entire Chikkabanavara locality mourned Muralidhar. He was born and brought up in the area, was known well to the residents, his friends and relatives said.
The victim’s last rites were performed near the petrol bunk. The Corporation Bank branch at Chikkabanavara, where the incident occurred, remained closed on Tuesday.