Man dies 'fighting chain-snatcher', but police sceptical

Mystery shrouds the death of a 22-year-old man who his friends say was fatally stabbed by a chain-snatcher while trying to catch him on Kaggadasapura Main Road in eastern Bengaluru on Saturday night.

Sai Charan and his three friends were on their way to a wedding ceremony in Kaggadasapura when they saw two men on a motorcycle accosting a woman around 10.30 pm. The friends watched in horror as one of the men snatched the woman’s gold chain.

But Charan decided to act and went after the chain-snatcher. Just as he tried to pin him down, the chain-snatcher retaliated and pulled out a dagger.

He stabbed him thrice in the back before fleeing with his accomplice who was waiting on the motorcycle. For the other friends, all this happened way too quick. Before they could rush to Charan’s rescue, the chain-snatchers rode off.

The friends then took Charan to Bowring Hospital. Meanwhile, a Hoysala patrol car from the Baiyappanahalli police station dashed to the spot and thence to the hospital for conducting enquiries. Charan succumbed to his injuries early on Sunday morning. The jurisdictional HAL police have registered a case of murder.

They have detained the friends for questioning. The above account was given to police by one of them, who has been identified as Subbu.

‘Loopholes’ in story
Police, however, do not believe Charan’s friends. They see several loopholes in their version of the events. “If there was an incident of chain-snatching, the woman should have approached us with a complaint. It’s more than 12 hours and no one has come up so far,” an investigating officer said.

The nature of injuries inflicted on Charan raises several questions. There are three stab wounds on a single place in his back and nowhere else. This does not indicate that there was any fight between Charan and the chain-snatcher as claimed by his friends, the officer said.

The investigators also see chinks in the turn of events narrated by the friends. All of them, including Charan, were drunk at the time of the incident. While one of them told police that they were going to attend a friend’s wedding, another said he was heading home.

“We are questioning his friends to ascertain what exactly happened. We need to find out whether Charan lost his life fighting a chain-snatcher or it was something else,” a senior police officer.
Charan was a resident of Kaggadasapura and worked as an office assistant at a private company in Koramangala, according to police.