Bengaluru flower vendor foils wee-hour ATM heist bid
Bengaluru: It was 2am. Janardhan Rao A, 30, a flower vendor and part-time photographer, was preparing bundles of plantain leaves in Malleswaram for an early-morning customer. Little did he realise his business-as-usual ritual at the stall that kept him awake at that unearthly hour would lead him to foiling an attempted ATM heist.
Police confirmed the kiosk, though damaged, had all its cash — amounting to a shade under Rs 10 lakh — intact.
At the kiosk just across the road, a man violently shaking the cash-dispensing unit, like one would shake a fruit-laden tree, caught Rao's attention. The man kicked the panel and cracked the display screen — unaware that someone was watching all the while. "I realised he was trying to break open the kiosk," Rao later recounted.
Rao had a bit of an emotional connect with this particular kiosk that would come across as nothing more than a random ATM to any other passerby. Installed when he was 14, the ATM kiosk has been a constant feature near his shop for nearly half his life. "For some reason, I have a childlike attachment to it."
Sensing something grossly wrong, Rao went across the road and confronted the stranger inside the kiosk. Grabbing his hand, he questioned his intention.
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The man snarled back in Hindi, telling Rao to mind his business. In the scuffle that followed, the intruder knocked Rao down and tried to escape, but Rao grabbed two wooden logs from his flower stall and went on hot pursuit of the target who sprinted towards Yeshwantpur.
Near the Sai Baba temple, Rao hurled one log like a spear, tripping the man. As the culprit staggered to his knees, Rao sent down the second log, too, with precision.
"I struck him on the knees and dialled 112," he said.
Minutes later, a Hoysala patrol reached the scene and arrested the suspect — Shakeel Ahmed, alias Ibrahim, from Haryana. He was remanded in judicial custody. Ahmed had come to Yeshwantpur two days earlier and tried his luck with the unguarded ATM in Malleswaram.
In a city that has seen too many bystanders freeze or flee in the wake of an imminent danger or crisis, Rao's heroics caught the lawkeepers' attention, with DCP (North) Saidulu Adavath confirming that he would be felicitated for his bravery.
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