Shootout in KR Puram: Game of revenge and counter-revenge

NT Correspondent

Bengaluru: City police have formed four special teams to probe the shootout incident that took place on Thursday in KR Puram. Shivashankar Reddy, 29, identified by the police as a history-sheeter of Madanapalli Town police station in Andhra Pradesh, along with his accomplice Ashok Reddy, 33, was shot at, allegedly by the members of his rival gang hailing from Andhra Pradesh.

The incident took place around 3 pm when the duo had come to see the ongoing construction work of Shivashankar’s apartment near Seegehalli. Speaking to News Trail, the KR Puram police said that the gang fired as many as 10 bullets out of which four hit Shivashankar while Ashok got one bullet in his leg.

Despite this, Ashok pulled the profusely bleeding Shivashankar into his car and drove toward the hospital. Both are currently being treated at a private hospital in the city. As per the sources, Shivashankar has many criminal cases including extortion and three murder cases filed against him.

It is alleged that in 2011, Shivashankar Reddy’s father, Jayachandra Reddy, was chased and brutally killed by a gang in front of him. Shivashankar killed the gang leader in revenge and later went on eliminating his rival gang members. It is also being said that recently he had attempted to extort money from his business partner and owner of a city-based real estate firm, Babu, by threatening to kill him.

A case had been filed regarding this at the Whitefield police station and Shivashankar was arrested two months ago. However, he was released on bail recently. A team of police has left for Andhra Pradesh to procure more information on the accused gang members while another team is verifying the CCTV footage to identify and trace the accused. Two teams have been sent to Telangana and Tamil Nadu each, sources from police said. Further investigation is on.