Bengaluru/Chitoor: A special Bengaluru police team has gone to Andhra Pradesh to secure the custody of Madhukar Reddy who was arrested by the Chittoor police on Saturday in connection with the attack on Jyothi Uday in an ATM kiosk in N.R. Square in November 2013. “We want to question him about this case and also several other cases,” said a senior police officer.
According to the police, Reddy had escaped the A.P. police dragnet in November 2013 after allegedly committing a murder there. “We suspect that he arrived in Bengaluru on November 18 and spent the day in Cubbon Park with no money in hand. The next morning, he ventured out looking to get his hands on cash. He zeroed in on Jyothi Uday, who had gone to the ATM in the morning to withdraw money to buy a gift on her daughter’s birthday,” the officer said.
Suspect in several murders
After questioning him, the Chitoor police suspect Reddy of being involved in the murder of a woman in Dharmavaram in Anantapur district in 2010; a murder for gain in Piler and the murder of a sex worker at Banjara Hills in Hyderabad.
In 2005, he is suspected of murdering a rival by throwing a bomb at him. He was arrested and handed a life sentence. Police suspected him of dabbling in clandestine deals involving explosives.
While serving his sentence at Kadapa Central Jail, he escaped while being taken to RIMS hospital the same year. Since then, he has been absconding.
After the attack in Bengaluru, he spent one year in Kerala working as a painter to evade arrest. He claims to have also worked in hotels in Hyderabad and Guntur.
Chittoor SP Ghattamaneni Srinivas said, "As per legal norms, we will initiate the process of asking the Bengaluru-based woman bank employee, who survived the attack, to identify the attacker.”
Though A.P. police were trying to trace Reddy, he was not linked to the Bengaluru ATM kiosk attack. Chitoor police claim that he revealed his involvement after being arrested on Friday night.
How he was caught
Madhukar Reddy's mother had recently passed away. This had forced him to linger in Chittoor district longer than he otherwise would, said the police. He had deserted his wife and was living with another woman. Some of the villagers told the police that Madhukar kept behaving like a ‘pathological criminal’. This prompted the police to keep a watch on him. During questioning, Reddy claimed to have carried out all the crimes single-handedly.
