It's confirmed, CAR cop stole another gun 10 years ago

Purushottam seems to have psychological issues: city police chief

Troubles are mounting for City Armed Reserve (CAR) head constable, Purushottam Rao, who was arrested last week for stealing a colleague’s service pistol 11 years ago.

Police on Saturday confirmed that he had also stolen a fully loaded 9 mm carbine machinegun (sten gun) from the CAR armoury in 2007. The weapon has been recovered from the house of one of his relatives in Kathriguppe. Purushottam (53) first landed in soup on Tuesday when police recovered from his house a service pistol stolen on September 5, 2006.

The pistol was issued to Dasharath Rao, then constable with the Quick Response Team (QRT). Purushottam was Dasharath’s colleague and both were deployed in the Raj Bhavan.

Given Purushottam’s penchant for guns, police suspected him of stealing the 9 mm carbine machinegun, too. He validated their suspicion and the weapon has been recovered. The machinegun was issued to an 11-member CAR platoon and Purushottam stole it from the CAR (headquarters) armoury on March 28, 2007. The theft was reported to the Cottonpet police station the same day but there was no headway in the investigation. Following the weapon’s theft, a departmental enquiry was ordered against the 11 constables and their annual increment withheld.

Speaking to journalists on Saturday, Police Commissioner Praveen Sood said Purushottam was behind the decade-old mysterious weapon thefts.

Cases solved

“These two cases had remained undetected. These were fully-loaded weapons. Purushottam didn’t use them. He has been remanded in judicial custody. He will be placed under suspension,” he said.

The police chief said it was unclear why Purushottam took to stealing the weapons. “He seems to have psychological issues. We will take him to Nimhans for psychological evaluation,” he said.

How he was caught?

Purushottam’s deep, dark secrets began to unravel a few days after he took on three youths for urinating on the wall of a Ganesha temple on Mysuru Road on February 17, 2017. He held a pistol to the head of Annamalai, one of the men. Unaware of Purushottam’s true identity as he was in plain clothes, Annamalai snatched the pistol and absconded.

Purushottam lodged a complaint with police, but did not report the theft of his service pistol. Police not only arrested the men but also seized the pistol from them. Annamalai said he had snatched the pistol from Purushottam, but the latter denied having lost the weapon. When police remained unconvinced, he tried to pass off Dasharath’s stolen pistol as his. That proved to be a dead give-away.