Stranger shoves ambulance driver from building for discarding garbage

A 28-year-old ambulance driver was shoved to his death from the first floor of a building by an unidentified man, following an argument over dumping garbage on the roadside.

R Devaraj, a native of Kunigal who works as an ambulance driver at a private hospital, was residing in the second floor of Madhu Complex in Nagendra Block in Hanumantha Nagar for the past three years. The building has eight rooms, which are occupied by single men.

During weekends, Devaraj usually partied with his friends Santhosh and Sunil, who stayed in the first floor. Deciding to have a party on Friday night, the two asked Devaraj to get food. The ambulance driver joined the party at 10.30 pm.

Around 11 pm, Devaraj walked up to the balcony and threw empty liquor bottles and food bags on the road. Noticing this, a passerby rained abuses at Devaraj. An angry Devaraj answered back, enraging the stranger who ran to the first floor and began quarrelling.

As the man shoved Devaraj from the first floor, his head hit a stone and blood oozed out. He started bleeding profusely, resulting in his death on the spot. The stranger immediately fled the scene as Devaraj lay dying.

The Girinagara police have registered a case under IPC Section 304 (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and formed three special teams to catch the accused.

The police said they have secured the CCTV footage, which showed a man about 30 or 35 years wearing shorts and a t-shirt. They believe the accused must be living in a nearby locality, and have taken the description of the man from Santhosh and Sunil. They said the grill on the first floor was only 2.5 feet high. Devaraj's life could have been saved if only the grills were a little higher.

Devaraj has been part of the green corridor to transport a live heart from BGS Hospital to HAL Airport in 2014. He repeated the feat in 2016, driving a living heart from MS Ramaiah Hospital to BGS Hospital.