A click in time helps cops nab murderers

BANGALORE: If their craze to pose with lethal weapons had not tempted these criminals, perhaps, they would not have fallen into the police net.Javed alias Ninety, 19, Suryaprakash alias Kariya, 20, Mohammed Gouse alias Gaja, 21, and Fayaz Khan alias Koli, 19 — all residents of Yarabnagar, liked watching action thrillers.As in the potboilers they were influenced by, they dreamt of wielding lethal weapons. Also, these four had posed with the very weapons in the camera, hours before they would be committing a murder.On April 19, Krishnachari, 45, the security guard of a lorry stand at Kadirenahalli Cross, was hacked to death and the miscreants had left the weapons at the scene of crime. Kumaraswamy Layout police had registered a case, but did not obtain any clues about the murder.However, investigation yielded a photograph in which four youths had posed with weapons and the police found that the weapons found in the picture and weapons recovered from the scene of crime were the same.When police interrogated the four persons, they confessed to the crime.“A few days before the murder, they were playing cricket in the lorry stand and Gopi, a cleaner, had picked up a quarrel with them when the ball had hit him.Following this, they decided to murder Gopi and purchased weapons from City Market.Before committing the murder, they went to a photo studio and posed with the weapons,” the police said. But when they went to kill Gopi, Krishnachari told them to leave.They called for Gopi when the security guard refused.“As Krishnachari did not budge, their wrath turned towards him and they hacked him to death after throwing chilli powder into his eyes,” the police explained.After the crime, they had stolen a scooter and were reportedly hiding in Kunigal fearing custody.The police recovered the scooter and weapons from the four accused.