Solving Crime: How probe into Andhra murder led cops to mystery man behind brutal 2013 ATM attack on Bengaluru woman

The attack inside ATM kiosk

On November 19, 2013, bank employee Jyothi Uday was heading to work as usual when she decided to retrieve some money from an ATM of the Corporation Bank located on JC Road in the heart of Bengaluru city.

According to the police chargesheet, as soon as she entered the kiosk, a man followed her inside and closed the shutter. The accused Madhukar Reddy was carrying a bag from which he pulled out a machete and threatened to kill her. He ordered her to withdraw money but when Jyothi refused, he attacked her and fled with her bag which contained Rs 200 and a Nokia mobile phone.

It took three years for the police to zero in on 35-year-old Kondappagiri Madhukar Reddy. (Express Photo)

The incident came to light when passersby noticed bloodstains in front of the ATM, but by then Jyothi was unconscious. She was initially taken to NIMHANS and later to BGS Global Hospital in Kengeri.

A police officer, who was part of two probe teams formed initially, recalls how the incident was quick to grab national attention. “It was the early years of Kannada news channels and social media such as Facebook. As the entire incident was caught on camera, it was telecast widely and the public attention led to a huge outcry. Then the city police commissioner Raghavendra Auradkar was on his toes because the culprit was yet to be identified despite the CCTV footage,” the officer says.

During the early stages, the police suspected that the accused could be linked to another incident in which two people had killed a security guard at an ATM kiosk on the Outer Ring Road (ORR). This was, however, ruled out later.

The whole issue also put the spotlight on the security of ATM kiosks especially after the then state home minister K J George revealed that many of them were unmanned. Assistant Commissioner of Police (Halasuru gate sub-division) Thimmaiah C E, who filed the chargesheet in the case, says, “The public outcry and media pressure kept the police on full alert. The Karnataka High Court also viewed the matter seriously, and sought details of the probe. It was a challenging period for the department.”

Probe reaches an impasse

The police shared the images of the suspect and announced a Rs 1 lakh bounty, even raising it to Rs 5 lakh in the next 20 days, but to no avail. “There was nothing to point at the name or address of the suspect which made the case complicated. We shared the photos with other state police forces but nothing really helped,” the officer says.

For nearly a year, there were no developments in the case. Meanwhile, Jyothi recovered slowly after spending months in hospital. “Like Jyothi, even we lost all hope of nabbing the suspect. Based on inputs from her, our focus remained in Karnataka, Tamil Nadu and Andhra Pradesh,” he says.

At one point, nearly 300 police personnel were deployed as part of the investigation, the officer adds. The police later filed a Closure Report in the case.

A confession out of the blue

A native of Thamballapalle village in Andhra Pradesh’s Chittoor district, Madhukar Reddy was a wanted criminal who was sentenced to life in a bomb attack case and had escaped from prison in 2011.

According to the police documents submitted in court, in 2005 Reddy had hurled bombs at Reddivari Ananda Reddy, a villager, over a local issue and was sentenced to life imprisonment by a court in Madanapalle. While lodged at Kadapa Central jail, he managed to escape from judicial custody in December 2011 and lived in different south Indian states doing odd jobs.

Suryakanth, who was a police inspector at SJ Park station when Reddy was eventually arrested, says that before arriving in Bengaluru, the accused had carried out some robberies and even a murder in Andhra Pradesh, and was living on the money he managed to obtain thus. As his funds started to dry up, Reddy reached Bengaluru – about a week before the ATM attack incident.

Thimmaiah, who is currently the Additional Superintendent of Police (Mandya), says the Andhra Pradesh police were looking for Reddy in connection with a murder he allegedly committed on November 10, 2013. According to the police, he had killed an old woman who lived near his house in Andhra Pradesh before fleeing. This was around nine days before he attacked Jyothi.

Assistant Commissioner of Police (Halasuru gate sub-division) Thimmaiah C E

An Andhra police team that was looking into long-pending cases and fugitives came across Reddy’s profile. Investigators soon found out that he frequented his grandmother’s house in Madanapalle.

After constant watch, the police nabbed Reddy on January 31, 2017 when he was visiting his grandmother. During the interrogation that followed, he revealed his involvement in the Bengaluru attack. CCTV images too matched his face and the sequence of events he narrated. Then Chittoor Superintendent of Police G Srinivas said during a press conference, “His claim is that he ran out of money and was hungry for a couple of days prior to the attack. He attacked the woman (Jyothi) only for money.”

Thimmaiah adds, “During the interrogation, we came to know that after the Bengaluru attack, he realised that it had caught wide attention. He shaved his head to avoid identification and went to Ernakulam in Kerala where he did petty jobs. The mobile phone he robbed was sold for Rs 500 in Andhra Pradesh. After a year, he moved to Chittoor and led a low-profile life.”

Over 7 years later, the conviction

The challenge before Thimmaiah, who filed the chargesheet after investigation, was to effectively build the case. Several years had passed after the crime in 2013 and a closure report had also been filed. “After Reddy’s arrest, we had to get evidence which included a statement in court from the person who had bought the stolen mobile phone from him. CCTV footage proved crucial and on February 13, 2019 Jyothi identified Reddy before the court from among seven people who were lined up. This was six years after the attack,” he says.

On February 1, 2021, 65th additional city civil and sessions judge Rajeshwara awarded 10 years’ jail to Madhukar Reddy. In the order, the judge said, “Considering the manner in which offence committed in this case is really brutal… To commit robbery, the accused caused an assault on the head, face of a lady by using a deadly weapon like a sickle. Records speak that the victim was under treatment for a considerably long time. Criminal history of the accused is not in favour of the accused to show leniency in imposing sentence.”