A 20-year-old man was tortured and murdered for allegedly stealing cables from a pump house, in Bengaluru’s Marathahalli, on Monday night.
Basheer Sheik, a native of West Bengal, was allegedly locked inside a pump house for several hours before he was electrocuted. Two of his friends – Hafeezulla and Ajmal – were also tortured by the gang, but they were let go after they found Basheer dead.
The three daily-wage workers were living in a makeshift shed near a pump house. The owners of the pump house have been complaining about the theft of electric cables for the past few weeks, and on Monday, some of the pump house workers found electric cables in the labourers’ shed. This led to the abduction of the trio.
“The pump house facilitated a drinking water supply business and the suspects are employees of this company. These men assumed that the labourers were stealing cables, and kept them inside the pump house for hours and tortured them,” Abul Ahad, deputy commissioner of police, Whitefield.
According police, the three men were beaten with electric wires and later they were electrocuted. Ajmal, one of the survivors, told the media that the lashes with electric cables went on for hours. “When he was given electric shock, Basheer fell unconscious and the gang ran away,” he said.
Police are on the lookout for six suspects. “Six people including the owner of the pump house are absconding since the incident. The statement of the survivors also points towards pump house owners. We have formed teams to track down the suspects,” said an investigating officer.
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