Raid on bus: Six police officers charged with dacoity

Bengaluru: The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) has chargesheeted six police officials and some other private persons in the infamous inter-State dacoity case of Rs 2.27 crore from a Kerala-bound bus in Yelwala police station limits in Mysore in January this year. The chargesheet was submitted in the jurisdictional court in Mysore after the Department obtained government permission to prosecute the accused police officials – the then sub inspector C.D. Jagadish, four constables – Satish, Manohar, Ravi and Latif of Mysore South police station and Prakash and the gunman of the then Southern range Inspector General of Police Ramchandra Rao under Sections 395 (dacoity) and 120A (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.  

Rao, who was transferred after he came under scanner for his alleged involvement in the crime, does not figure in the chargesheet. “There is no legal admissible evidence against the then IGP or the then deputy superintendent of Police (Mysore rural) Srihari Baragur. The investigation is however on and it will be early to come to any conclusion,” said an official source. He added that it is a complex case because there are no independent witnesses.

A Kerala-bound bus carrying about Rs 2.27 crore of four jewelers was ‘raided’ by the police in Yelawala police station limits in Mysore on January 4, who seized six bags of cash from inside the bus and arrested the driver and the cleaner of the bus for “illegal” transportation of cash.

The police showed a recovery of Rs. 20 lakh, but the Kerala jewelers told their Home Minister that the amount was around Rs. 2.27 crore. “There is no clinching evidence on the exact amount, which was reportedly being transported in the bus. We can only surmise from the statements of the victims and the accused,” added the officer.