Over the years, Bengaluru has witnessed an unsettling and unwelcome rise in crime, with cases ranging from shocking murders to bizarre burglaries. as we reflect on the city’s dark underbelly, HM Chaithanya Swamy brings you stories of criminals and madcaps who added a chilling edge to the tech hub’s most notorious acts

The religious burglar

Rob the rich, feed the poor. Meet John Melvin, the modern-day Robin Hood.
Deeply religious, he carried a copy of the Bible in his toolkit while committing crimes. After pulling off heists, he would feed the poor near churches, visit Mysuru and Velankanni in TN. From Jalahalli, the 48-year-old burglar found targets in upscale areas. Once he marked a cop’s house, and promptly did a retake and returned the booty. He faced 50 cases in a 30-year career. Melvin, who operated only under the bright sunlight, would liberally spend money at massage parlours in the night.
Love, war and murder

He fell in love with his boss’s wife because she was a mirror image of his ex-girlfriend. All three key characters worked in the same IT company: Sourabh Rastogi, the victim, was a senior manager, his junior Rasvin Changappa, the accused, who went after Rastogi’s wife Ankisha. On June 14, 2014, Rasvin stabbed Rastogi 18 times to win over Ankisha. Later, Rasvin, son of an ex-serviceman from Kodagu, informed police that Ankisha had no role in crime saga despite digital trail of mesages and calls between them. He’s on bail since Jan 2015.
Macheri’s dark revenge
High-school love, murder and an obsession for neighbour’s wife. Though Gokul Macheri, a techie from Kerala, was in love with a high-school friend, he married Anuradha, a lecturer, only to realize she was allegedly in a relationship with a student. The techie posed as baba, astrologer and Archbishop to extract confessions from his wife about her affair. He got her drunk, smashed her head with an idol of Ganesha and killed her. Mission accomplished. Now, part 2. His ex-friend was married to Siju Jose. He tried to fix Siju in a bombthreat case, but got caught.
Gold heist’s super 8
This was a meticulously planned and executed heist at Muthoot Mini Nidhi’s New Thippasandra branch in Jan 2023. After a three-month recce, robbers kidnapped the branch manager, stole the store key and decamped with 40kg gold. A two-second call to the wife of a thief drew curtains on the case. Cops nabbed the accused from Shimla and recovered the stolen gold. The accused got 10-year jail.
Name’s James, killer James
James Kumar Ray, a bodybuilder and trainer, literally flexed his muscles in the gym where he worked, allegedly misbehaving with women and was caught with hand in the till. Ray was fired from the job after gym owner’s wife Payal Surekha found about irregularities. Ray barged into her house, stabbed and slit her throat in Dec 2010. He was given life term in 2019.
1st female serial killer kd
Kempamma, 57, is India’s first woman serial killer. Also called Cyanide Mallika, she killed eight women from 1998 to 2007. She suffered losses in business and later worked with a goldsmith where she learned about use of cyanide. Saying she’d solve people’s problems through pooja, she made victims wear jewellery and sprinkled cyanide-mixed water on them. She would kill women for jewellery.
“Power” hungry battery bundits
Battery burglars. Yes, a couple who lived in Chikkabanavara and from Chikkaballapur, stole hundreds of batteries installed at traffic junctions in Bengaluru in a seven-month period during Covid. Police were perplexed to find batteries missing from traffic posts. Police analysed footage from 300 CCTV cameras and checked 4,000 vehicles before nabbing the couple and recovering 200 batteries from them. S Sikandar and wife Nazma Sikandar made Rs 4,000 for a three-battery pack. Dealsweetener? Easy-to-open padlocks on the battery niche.
Naga’s lifelong burglary

Four names, one aim. Nagaraj, Forest Nagaraj, Naga, Nanjunda, 68.
Resident of TN’s Shoolagiri and from Bangarpet in Kolar, Naga was appointed a forest guard at a young age. He took VRS in 2009 and started committing burglaries targeting locked houses. His signature: Leave footwear 100 metres from his targeted houses. 40 cases against him. After his partner’s death 15 years ago, he chose to remain a single. Yet, love blossomed and how! A man with four aliases married thrice and has nine kids.
Elusive Hebbettu Manja

He dropped out of PU to enter the world of crime at 19, fell in love with a bureaucrat’s daughter and fled the country fearing being killed by rivals or in police encounter. Manjunath D, 47, earned nickname ‘Hebbattu’ (thumb, in Kannada) Manja after he suffered a thumb injury in a fight in Shivamogga, his hometown. His brother is a retired BSF soldier. He was a football player and played district-level games. Manja’s name became notorious in the underworld after he attacked his rival, Korangu Krishna, in 2008.
Minor boy’s criminal rise

He had an early brush with the law as a drug-peddler when he was a minor. Now 36, Karthik alias Ullal Karthik, from Ullal Upanagar here, is from Andhra Pradesh. Once past 18, he expanded his friendship (with other rowdies) and footprint (beyond his lair): Murders, extortion, assaults against police officers but didn’t let go of drug-peddling. He formed a gang notorious for threatening or attacking complainants. Or would strike at the ankles of witnesses if they turned hostile, forcing them to hobble for life.
The highway robber’s long road to crime

A wannabe politician, he tried to plot the murder of an Andhra Pradesh VVIP, and finally ended up as one of the most dangerous criminals; highway robberies was his USP. Girish alias Kunigal Giri, 35, is a priest’s son. Established a criminal enterprise with associates Psycho Vishwanth and Lakshmana alias Suli. In June 2019, during birthday celebrations at a prominent establishment on Residency Road, police intervention led to the rescue of 266 women employed as dancers, though Giri escaped.
The underwear thief
He loved to cross-dress, especially with innerwear stolen from Maharani College’s hostel. Abu Taleem, employed with Bangalore Turf Club, would climb up hostel walls naked, steal undergarments, wear them for a few days before heading out on next vicarious venture. When he wasn’t trying to grab women’s innerwear, he would play Peeping Tom. Arrested in March 2017, Taleem, 38, from Bihar, is married and has two children. His wife painted the naked truth about his activities: He would wear her undergarments too at home. And his room in Bengaluru had a stack of girls’ undergarments. He used to daub powder on his face, apply oil on his body to escape if caught.
Cycle Ravi peddals crime
Ravi Kumar, also known as Cycle Ravi, admittedly entered the world of crime by mistake. The 48-year-old realised this after his four children from two marriages saw and read reports of his criminal activities in the media. Son of a cycle-repair shopowner, Ravi helped his father in business, later worked as an autorickshaw driver and started extorting money from women involved in sex rackets in the Majestic area. He was accused in 10 murder cases and was close to rowdies Lokesh alias Mulama and Manjunath alias Hebbattu Manja. He is an accused in an attempt-tomurder case against a Sandalwood producer in 2020.
Mahim goes low key

From a life in blood-soaked crime stories to its silver-screen version, Shaikh Mohamad Asgar has turned over a new leaf. Asgar alias Maheem alias Mahim, 61, a resident of Someshwaranagar in Jayanagar, was a rowdy listed with 17 cases, including two murders. He was acquitted in most cases, including in the murder of former BBMP corporator Diwan Ali. After his release from prison, he maintained a low profile. Mahim wrote script for a movie based on his life. Star Shivarajkumar played the lead role in the 2009 movie.
City’s first POCSO case
Bengaluru’s moment of shame came when it recorded its first Pocso case in Jan 2014 after a preschool girl was assaulted allegedly by a designated school van driver in HSR Layout. The accused, Srinivas M, 26, assaulted her in his van. For a couple of days, the girl complained of pain and fever. An examination at hospital confirmed rape. After a court cleared him, parents appealed the verdict.
Cyanide Mohan’s homicide trails

Love, sex, and cyanide. Mohan Kumar was an ex-schoolteacher from Dakshina Kannada, and a serial rapist and murderer. In popular lore as Cyanide Mohan, he is accused of killing 30 women in Karnataka, convicted in 20 cases. Had three wives, multiple affairs. First arrested for attempting to kill his lover in 2000. In jail, Mohan learned about cyanide from a goldsmith. He used cyanide to kill women for cash and ornaments. He befriended women, had sex with them on the promise of marriage, took them to a lodge, and killed them. Mohan used to give cyanidelaced pills to women and asked them to consume them in toilet, claiming they would feel the urge to urinate immediately. He then returned to the lodge and escaped with their valuables. The victim count is still hazy.
‘Psycho’ Shankar, a terrible nightmare

Thirty rape-murder cases. M Jaishankar, or Psycho Shankar, from Salem, was convicted in three cases and facing trial in 24 when he escaped from Bengaluru prison on Sept 1, 2013. Called ‘psycho’ because he sexually assaulted a woman and set her husband on fire alongside in Chitradurga. He worked as a driver and had three daughters. His claim to infamy was in 2009 when he kidnapped and raped a constable from an all-woman police station in Kangeyam of TN’s Tiruppur district. While escaping from B’luru jail, he suffered a crippling injury. Due to depression, he slit his throat and ended his life. He always carried a machete – and sinister plots – in his handbag.
Brutal ATM attacker & his elusive tactics

A miscreant mercilessly attacked bank employee Jyothi Udhay with a machete in ATM kiosk of B’luru’s Corporation Bank on Nov 19, 2013. Kondappagiri Madhukar Reddy, from Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh, was on the run for three years. He was arrested by AP police in a murder case. During interrogation, he confessed to the attack on Jyothi. She suffered paralysis and recovered after a few months. When she refused to withdraw money for him, angry Reddy attacked her and fled with her bag, which had only Rs 200 and a phone.
2003 murder that shook Bengaluru
South Bengaluru girl Shubha Shankaranarayan’s engagement is performed with family friend and neighbour Girish BV in Banashankari II Stage on November 30, 2003. Marriage fixed for April 2004. Four days after the engagement, Shubha and her fiancé, on the way to dinner on a two-wheeler, briefly stop on Outer Ring Road to watch flights land and take off at HAL Airport. Suddenly, the boy is hit on the head from behind with a motorcycle’s shock absorber. The groom-to-be died a day later. Shubha told police Girish was killed by unknown assailant. In August 2010, a sessions court held Shubha, her boyfriend Arun Verma and two of his friends guilty. Their appeals are currently pending before the Supreme Court.
Grandma murderer hid body for 5 years

Gobi Manchurian. That’s the key ingredient in this murder case. Sanjay Vasudev Rao, then 27, a marketing executive, was arrested five years after killing grandmother Shantha Kumari, 70, over bringing Gobi from a hotel in August 2016. With a friend’s help, they stuffed the body in a plastic drum and hid it in a wardrobe in their rented Kengeri house in Bengaluru. The murder came to light after nine months. Sanjay and mother Shashikala continued to stay in the same house until Feb 2017. The mother son shifted to Kolhapur without vacating the house. The owner noticed strange smell on May 17 and alerted police. Based on a bank account opened in Sanjay’s name in Maharashtra, police zeroed in on the duo in October 22. The duo is in jail.
Slum Bharath & his gang
Entered the big bad world of crime at 16 and shot dead in an encounter at 32 on February 27, 2020. In those 16 years, Bharat Kumar alias Slum Bharath, originally from Tamil Nadu, built his gang of 150 associates, was arrested and put in jail 10 times. His dossier of 50 crimes included murders, attempts to murder, robberies, extortion, kidnapping for ransom, land-grab, and attacks on police officers.
The notorious cop killers

A father-son duo, notorious for stealing vehicles, had booked a bike and went to the showroom in Nelamangala in 2015 to take its delivery. Cops were waiting. The duo – CJ Harish Babu alias Krishnappa and son Madhu Krishna alias Gonne Madhu – started running away, but were chased by Doddaballapur police sub-inspector S Jagadish and his team. Babu attacked Jagadish with a dagger. Jagadish died on the spot
Juvenile prodigy of crimes: The Tondulkar scorecard
Sanjay Kumar alias Chandala was called ‘Tondulkar’ because he had unleashed 100 crimes as a juvenile. He had faked his age in school. Sanjay, a class 8 dropout, took to crime, stealing mobile phones, cash, and snatching gold chains from women. He used to attack people with a button knife. He worked for seniors who would pay him Rs 2,000 to Rs 3,000 per hit. Each time police caught him, he would walk out of juvenile home in a week. Sanjay was killed by a rival gang in Chamarajpet in November 2015.
They came, they raped and shocked the nation

Eight sandalwood smugglers, including a juvenile, saw an NLSIU student and her friend on BU campus on Oct 13, 2012. They scared the boy away and assaulted her. The attackers had taken away her phone, given her a Rs 10 note to reach her hostel. After 6-7 days, her phone pinged in Ramanagara ‘Sholay’ Hills leading to their arrest and conviction.
The life & death of ‘Urban Veerappan’
Moving up the value chain, Syed Akram – part of ‘Urban Veerappan’ brothers – shifted from Shivamogga to Bengaluru in 2000s. The family was involved in 150 crimes and had links with the underworld in Maharashtra, Goa and Kerala. On May 4, 2011, police closed in on Akram and his friend who were in a car. Akram fired thrice at cops. One shot hit a cop in a bulletproof jacket. When he didn’t heed police’s call, he was shot in forehead by an inspector.