City doctor’s kidnap, extortion case: Fugitive on the run finally arrested after 10 years

Mysore/Mysuru: A fugitive, wanted in a kidnap and extortion of a city-based doctor but on the run for the past 10 years, has been finally arrested by Kuvempunagar Police.

Phaniraj Gowda, a resident of Dattagalli is the accused who was apprehended by the Police based on a tip-off. He is a known offender with several inter-district cheating cases pending against him at the Police Stations within Mysuru city and also other districts.

Phaniraj Gowda, along with his accomplice Ramachandra D. Hegde had allegedly kidnapped Dr. M.K. Mahesh from the latter’s Panchamantra Road residence, Kuvempunagar on the night of Aug. 8, 2014. 

Mahesh was taken to Phaniraj Gowda’s house first, where the perpetrators forcibly obtained his signature on a few documents and demanded that Rs. 20,000 be deposited to Ramachandra Hegde’s bank account. 

Dr. Mahesh called his relative Anand over phone and got the money deposited to Ramachandra Hegde’s account.  However, they demanded Rs. 2 lakh to be brought to a designated spot and after collecting the amount, took Dr. Mahesh to Ankola in Uttara Kannada District.

However, the extortion didn’t stop there too, as the duo swindled Rs. 3 lakh from Dr. Mahesh’s father K.D. Krishnaiah and his relative Basavarajaiah, before releasing Mahesh on Aug. 11, 2014. They had issued a life threat to Mahesh, if he complained to Police in this regard.

 After keeping quiet for some time, Dr. Mahesh had filed a private complaint at a Court and following the Court order on Nov. 19 same year, Kuvempunagar Police had filed a case under various IPC Sections- 426, 468, 469, 471, 120 r/w 34.

Kuvempunagar Police Inspector Arun, who got a wind of accused Phaniraj Gowda visiting his Dattagalli house recently, caught hold of him and produced him before a Court. He has been remanded to judicial custody.

When the Police flipped through his records, it emerged that he was not just wanted in kidnap case, but also in cheating cases booked at several Police Stations in the city like Alanahalli, Krisnnaraja and Saraswathipuram but also in Chamarajanagar Town Police Station, Pandavapura in Mandya, Tumakuru Town Police Station, Chennammanakere Achukattu Police Station and Hanumantha Nagar Police Station in Bengaluru.

Phaniraj Gowda had established Nishka Multipurpose Souharda Cooperative Society in Chamarajanagar and had collected investments from many only to cheat them later. A case in this regard has been registered at Chamarajanagar Town Police Station.

Police said that Phaniraj Gowda’s modus operandi involved luring unsuspecting people with promises of higher interest rates in return for their investments and site allotments, amassing substantial sums of money. While he is out on bail in some cases, he has been served arrest warrant by the court in others. 

To evade Police, Gowda was changing his hideouts frequently. The Police who had been tracking his movements, finally succeeded in arresting him from his house.