Judicial custody for woman’s attacker in Bengaluru ATM

Bengaluru/Chittoor: A local court in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor on Sunday sent the alleged attacker of a woman at an ATM kiosk here over three years ago to 12 days judicial custody, police said.

“Judge Kavita of the Paleru court has remanded accused Madhukar Reddy to judicial custody till February 17 for interrogation in four-five criminal cases, including an attack on a woman at an ATM in Bengaluru,” Chittoor Superintendent of Police G. Srinivas told reporters at Chittoor, about 190km from Bengaluru.

Being Sunday, Reddy (35) was produced before the judge at her residence a day after being arrested at Madanapalle in the same district.

“We have lodged Reddy in the Paleru sub-jail as he had committed one of the crimes in that area while he was on run as a convict from Kadapa jail in 2011,” said Srinivas.

A special police team from Bengaluru, which rushed to Madanapelle to secure Reddy’s custody, has joined the Andhra investigation team to interrogate him, taking his statement and his finger prints to match with those collected from the ATM kiosk.

Reddy allegedly attacked Jyothi Uday, 38, with a machete when she was drawing cash from the ATM of the state-run Corporation Bank in the city centre on November 19, 2013. She is an employee of the same bank at a branch in the city.

Though the CCTV camera in the kiosk captured the horrifying incident, Reddy was at large, despite police launching a massive hunt for him in both the states over the past 40 months and circulating widely his picture to trace him.

“As Reddy has confessed to attacking Jyothi and committing other heinous crimes such as four murders, including of a woman at different places across the state (Andhra), he will be taken to those places on transit remand for investigating all the crimes,” reiterated Srinivas.

The Karnataka government announced Rs 10 lakh cash prize as a reward for capturing the assailant or leading to his arrest.

Though an Andhra Police constable nabbed Reddy at Madanapalle in another case, he is eligible for the reward as per the norms.

IANS