This man enjoys casinos in Goa by robbing people in Bengaluru

Bangalore Mirror

Bengaluru, 04 Mar 2017: When he is not busy planning a heist or zeroing in on a house to break into, 32-year-old Manjunath can reportedly be found inside casinos in Goa, in the company of beautiful women. If he is at home in Bengaluru, then he could be spotted driving down the streets in his Toyota Fortuner but that was until last week when a police team arrested him from Soladevanahalli. The police managed to arrest the ‘elusive’ Manjunath, alias Komughatta Manju, in a dramatic scuffle that ended with the man being bundled into an ambulance with a bullet wound to the leg.

 

 

Vidyaranyapura inspector Puneet Kumar claimed he was left with no option but to open fire as Manjunath was pelting his team with stones when they cornered him near Acharya College in the locality. Despite booking him in more than 200 cases of burglary, theft and chain-snatching, the city police have managed to send him behind bars in just 16 cases. He reportedly has close links with the Sandalwood film industry and is believed to take some actresses with him on his trips to Goa.

 

Manjunath reportedly began his crime career after he was arrested for a theft at the age of 14 in Soladevanahalli. Hailing from Komughatta near Uttarahalli in Bengaluru rural district, he eventually caught the attention of hardened criminals like Nagaraj and Tavarekere Seena who groomed him at Parappana Agrahara after a couple of years. The police claimed that he prefers to focus on gold ornaments and used to have close links with some goldsmiths and pawnbrokers who used to help him sell the loot. Manjunath has been active for about 18 years now and, according to the police, the main driving force behind his criminal career was his frequent lavish Goan vacations.

 

“He makes at least a few lakhs from theft attempts. Then his destination immediately changes to Goa. He takes a flight and before it, he calls an agent who provides him with women. He books a good hotel in Goa and travels with the woman for a few days. He might have gone to Goa about a 100 times,” a senior police officer said. The police claimed that Manjunath had a very simple modus operandi as he used to do recce of homes in residential areas in the garb of a plumber or an electrician to identify the vacant ones and then strike at night. According to the city police, taking a cue from his mentors, he also used to train youths in jail to rob.