Duo attack woman, nabbed after bike runs out of gas

CHENNAI: When members of a patrolling police team on Sterling Road in Nungambakkam spotted two men towing a bike on Tuesday night, they thought it was the usual tale of a bike running out of fuel.
It was only after one of the two men ran away and they spotted blood stains on the other’s shirt that the police personnel realised something was amiss. They took the man to the police station and grilled him.He identified himself as Prasanna, 35, of Choolaimedu, and admitted that with his friend Venkat, who managed to escape, assaulted a woman named Stella in her rented Mylapore home. It was while they were headed home that their bike ran dry, he said.
On Wednesday morning, a police team went to the place where Prasanna had said the assault took place and found blood stains all over but the injured woman was missing.
Police checked all government hospitals in the city and found that no woman matching the descriptions provided by the accused had been admitted there for treatment.
Later, police made inquiries with the house owner Latha and found Stella had been staying there for the past couple of months. Stella then appeared before the Mylapore police and lodged a formal complaint against Prasanna and his friend.
Inquiries revealed that there had been a money dispute between Stella and an autorickshaw driver hailing from Vadapalani and that the assailants Prasanna and Venkat were the auto driver’s friends. Stella told police that after Prasanna and his friend attacked her, she boarded an auto and went to a relative’s house before being treated at a private hospital for her injury.
Based on Stella’s complaint, police registered a case and launched a hunt for Venkat.