Man under custody dies at ulavapadu police station

Kandukur: A man, who is in the police custody for investigation of a car theft, died on Saturday, informed the Ulavapadu police. According to the Ulavapadu police received a complaint about the theft of an Innova car from Chirutalamettu Santosh of Nellore on September 4.

He complained that the owner of car asked him to sell the car and he put the information in public. On September 4, Shaik Babar Basha of Velipadu village in Dagadarthi mandal of Nellore district, approached him and asked the car for trial.

He sent driver Sreenu along Basha for the trial upto few kilometres. But Basha said to the driver that maintenance issues will be known only after a long drive and insisted him to go up to Ongole. But at Ulavapadu, he stopped the car and asked the driver to bring biryani parcel from a roadside hotel. By the time driver returned, Basha escaped with the car. The driver and Santosh lodged a complaint to Ulavapadu police.

The police registered a case and started investigation. The DSP said that on a tip off, the police went to Nellore along with the complainant and driver and identified Basha and arrested him. While they are returning, the police claimed that the accused complained of chest pain and they shifted him to Ulavapadu PHC for first aid. By the time, he is shifted to Kandukur area hospital for better treatment, Basha is dead.

DSP Prakasa Rao said the accused had history of similar crimes and selling the vehicles at Chorbazaar in Guntur and had cases in Vinukonda, Nadendla, Tadepalligudem, Saidapuram and GRP Vijayawada police stations.

The DSP said they booked the case as custodial death and following National Human Rights Commission guidelines. The body was shifted to RIMS Ongole for postmortem by a team of doctors and the whole procedure will be video graphed for reference for the commission, he added.