Bangalore: Yenayithu uncle? Yake inge madta iddira? Aata aadta iddira ishtotalli? (What happened uncle? Why are you doing like this? These are the words that 18-year-old Gayathri, a PU II student living in the Pragati PU College Hostel opposite Whitefield railway station in Kadugodi, screamed out just before 35 year-old Mahesh K shot to death 18-year-old, Gauthami R, and critically injured another.
It was sheer luck for Gayathri who escaped certain death when Mahesh barged into Gayathri's and Shrisha's room and pointed the loaded pistol at her forehead but the pistol did not fire when Mahesh pulled the trigger.
Additional commissioner of police (East) Harishekaran attributes the pistol's failure to the weapon being old and overused. Had the pistol been in a good condition, Gayathri would have certainly been dead on the spot, the senior official said.
Just seconds before the weapon failed to fire, Gayathri had screamed out those words at the sociopath Mahesh. But upon the pistol failing, a shocked Gayathri collapsed and immediately hid behind the door. Mahesh had then released the pistol's magazine to reload and proceeded to shoot her sleeping roommate Shirisha, 18, below her nostrils on the upper lip. But she survived. She was admitted to the intensive care unit of Manipal Hospital where Shirisha was successfully operated upon and declared `out of danger'.
In the hurry to reload the pistol one bullet fell to the floor which was later found by the investigators.
Harishekaran said the weapon's magazine had the capacity to hold 13 bullets although Mahesh had loaded nine. He had intended to kill at least three to four girls.
Of those nine, he used one to kill Gauthami and one to shoot at Shirisha both sleeping targets.
“We have seized one live bullet from the spot and six live bullets from his pistol magazine and two empty cartridges from the crime spot,“ the official said.
It was when the pistol failed to fire and Mahesh shot Shirisha that Gayathri and the other girls on the third floor of the hostel began to scream. The commotion caused Mahesh to panic and he fled using the staircase after putting his pistol in his pocket.
On being interrogated Mahesh told the police that he procured the pistol from two North Indians in KR Puram by paying some `small amount'. However, the police doubt that version because Mahesh failed to convincingly reveal who those two sellers of the pistol were.
The police have found that the country pistol was manufactured in North India. A senior police official said such country-made weapons are mainly manufactured in Bihar or Uttar Pradesh and that they suspected that the weapon had made its way from there through a network of arms smugglers as is evident from the fact that the weapon is old and overused.
“We will seek the assistance of the forensic science laboratory experts to find out more details about the pistol,“ Harishekaran said.
Police investigating into the case have questioned Mahesh on reason for the fatal attack, and where he had procured the pistol from.
Source: Bangalore Mirror
