JOIN USA year on, police still hopeful of nabbing fugitive ATM attacker
On November 19 last year, Bengalureans had woken up to a brutal attack on Corporation Bank manager Jyothi Uday inside an ATM kiosk in the City.
Though 364 days have elapsed, the City police are still hopeful of cracking the case. According to a senior police officer, the investigation will start afresh, including a spot ‘mahazar’ and analysis of digital evidence.
Jyothi Uday, 45, was attacked with a machete by an intruder inside the Corporation Bank ATM kiosk at the LIC building on JC Road. She was found in a pool of blood inside the kiosk three hours after the attack.
All that the police have ascertained so far is that the attacker is a Telugu-speaking, around 5’6ft-man who had killed a woman for gain in Anantapur district in Andhra Pradesh, just 10 days before the attack on Jyothi Uday.
Both the Anantapur and Bengaluru police are in constant touch on any development in the case, a senior police officer said.
“The final report in the case has not yet been submitted to the court. I have called for a meeting of all the officers involved in the case since the past one year. We will start the probe afresh with available leads in the case,” Additional Commissioner of Police (Crime) P Harishekharan told Deccan Herald on Monday.
The City police have printed pamphlets with the suspect’s photo, captured by the CCTV cameras inside the ATM kiosk. An official said that within 10 days, they got a report that the same person was involved in the murder of an elderly woman in Anantapur.
“The culprit had used the card he had robbed from his victim in Andhra Pradesh, at the ATM kiosk in Bengaluru. Somehow, he could not withdraw money even after trying a couple of times. It was only later that he waited for another victim outside the kiosk. When Jyothi Uday entered the kiosk, he barged in and attacked her with a machete,” the police officer said.
After much efforts to nab the culprit in several villages in and around Anantapur district, the City police had announced Rs 2-lakh reward for any information about him. “We have dispatched the pamphlets to all the districts bordering Andhra Pradesh in the State. In a day or two, we will take a decision to increase the reward amount, besides stepping up other efforts,” the officer said.
It is not that the CCTV footage, which showed him trying his luck with the robbed card, was the only lead the City police were going after. The City police had learnt that the suspect was using another mobile phone, besides the one he robbed from Jyothi Uday.
“After the incident, he headed straight to Hindupur and sold Jyothi’s mobile phone to a shopkeeper. Though the phone was seized, nothing much could be extracted in connection with his whereabouts. After ploughing through lakhs of mobile numbers, we suspect he may not be using the sim card he probably was using at the time of crime,” a police officer said.