Police open fire at murder accused, foil escape attempt

A police inspector shot at a murder accused and injured him in the leg, after the latter attacked three policemen at Jigani Industrial Area on the outskirts of the City on Sunday.

Jigani police station sub-inspector (SI) and two constables suffered injuries after Deepak Kumar Jha attacked them with a brick and the handcuff.  Jha too suffered injuries as the Jigani police inspector shot at him in the leg with his service revolver. SI Murali, constables Raju and Dutta and Jha are all being treated at a private hospital and are out of danger.

The incident took place around 3.30 pm near Cipla factory in Jigani industrial Area when the police had taken Jha there for a mahazar. Jha and his associates had attacked five persons on the night on January 24. One person died in the attack. The cops had detained Jha and had taken him there to complete formalities, police said. A team led by CPI Mallesh received credible information on Saturday that Jha and his associates executed the attack on five persons, killing Akash a native of Odisha.

The police detained Jha, a native of Bihar and Santosh from Nepal, and interrogated them till early morning. The police took the handcuffed Jha to the spot for mahazar. The cops allowed him to relieve himself following a request. He sat down for a while before attacking Murali with a stone and brick. Another constable Raju rushed to the rescue of Dutta and Murali. Jha clamped his hand around Raju’s neck and held it tight as the constable was gasping for breath, said the police. Mallesh, who witnessed the attack from inside his vehicle, warned Jha to stop attacking the constables, but he started dragging the constable away in an attempt to escape. Mallesh fired twice in air as a warning, but the latter kept dragging away the constables. Mallesh fired again and injured Jha’s left knee, the police added.

Jha collapsed on the ground and police rushed all the four to hospital. The police have taken up a suo motu case. Jha, who grew up in the City, was unemployed and was involved in several criminal cases.

“He (Jha) seems to be mentally disturbed and wanted to be a don. Hence, he attacked and killed a man recently,“ Bengaluru Rural SP B Ramesh said.

The murder accused had threatened to slit police men like the Islamic State terrorists. He was yelling at the cops till early morning on Sunday. He kept torturing cops while he was interrogated, said the police.