Hyderabad: Techie tries robbery with toy gun, pinned by crowd

HYDERABAD: A bad career move landed a former Wipro software engineer behind bars after his bid to loot a bank, to feed his family, was foiled by alert locals at Manikonda on Monday. The techie-turned-robber, David Praveen, was stoned and pinned down by people after he snatched Rs 2.5 lakh cash from

Karur Vysya Bank

.


At 3.30pm, David, 45, a resident of OU Colony in Raidurgam, entered

Karur Vysya

Bank’s Manikonda branch wearing a burqa. He entered the cabin of branch manager K L Mahendra Kumar with a dummy firearm and demanded cash. In addition to the dummy weapon, he was also carrying a knife, an acid bottle and a dummy bomb.

Panicked manager, ran out of the cabin alerting other staff. David then threatened the staff with the ‘weapons’ he was carrying and screamed `lie down’ in movie style. “David assaulted cashier Shiva Shankar with his fists and forcibly took away ?2.5 lakh cash from his cabin,” Raidurgam inspector M Ram Babu said.

After stealing cash, David ran out of the bank. But, people followed him and pelted stones at him. David then threatened to hurl the ‘bomb’ at people chasing him, but the unrelenting mob continued to pelt stones at him, causing a head injury. Around 200 metres away from the bank, David hid himself behind a car and the mob surrounded him and pinned him down.

Later, they handed over David to police. Based on a complaint lodged by the manager, police registered a robbery case (571/2018) against David under Section 392 of the

Indian Penal Code

(IPC).

Police took David to hospital and doctors had to put eight stitches to stoop bleeding. He told police that till four months ago he worked at Wipro office in Hyderabad as an assistant manager.

“Four months ago he joined some other company, but the new management did not pay him salary. David claimed he could not pay rent and also pressure was mounting on him from his family as the fee of his two children was due. To come out of financial problems, David hatched a plan to rob a bank,” ACP, Madhapur, N Shyam Prasad Rao said.

Police said David wore gloves, goggles, socks and also put a tape on the dummy gun’s handle to not leave fingerprints. “The acid he was carrying was toilet cleaner. The gun was a dummy and so was the bomb, while it was a kitchen knife,” the ACP added.

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