Cops catch abductors, rescue man from being buried alive

Bengaluru, Nov 27: Within an hour of being abducted by a gang of five persons, who wanted to bury him alive in a graveyard at Muniswamappapalya on Friday night, a 24-year-old school van driver was rescued by the Kumaraswamy Layout police.

On Friday evening, the accused — Murali, Jeeva, Muthu, and Arjun — were riding two scooters on ISRO Layout main road, when one of the two-wheelers collided with a school van that Praveen was driving.

As the men began arguing, Praveen abused them, asked them to follow traffic rules, and immediately alerted the van owner about the accident.
 
Enraged, two men climbed into the van, overpowered the driver and drove off to Muniswamappapalya graveyard in Kumaraswamy Layout. The two other accomplices followed the van.

“One of their friends who not with them — a minor boy — had relatives who worked in the graveyard as caretakers,” said the police. Once they reached the graveyard, they assaulted Praveen and started digging a grave as they had planned to bury him alive.

“The van owner who had overheard the conversation during the fight, realised that the men were planning to abduct Praveen, and alerted the police,” said a police officer.

The police rushed to the spot, and started searching for the gang. Police inspector V.M. Guruprasad instructed his men to search the graveyard.

Within an hour, the police zeroed in on the accused. “It was a sheer luck that we rescued Praveen in the nick of time,” said Mr. Guruprasad. Four, including the minor boy, were rounded up by the police, while a fifth associate was later picked up by their Thalaghattapura counterparts in a robbery case.