Hyderabad: A head constable was injured after a wanted criminal opened fire at the police in a pub at Gachibowli in a bid to escape from being nabbed, here on Saturday.
Working on a tip-off, a team from Madhapur central crime station (CCS), led by a DCP reached the pub to apprehend Battula Prabhakar, a habitual offender from Visaphapatnam.
When the police asked him to surrender, Prabhakar, carrying two weapons on him, allegedly opened fire at the police team. A bullet hit the toe of head constable Venkata Reddy.
According to Cyberabad commissioner Avinash Mohanty, Prabhakar, aged around 30 years, was involved in over 100 cases of theft in engineering colleges. His peculiar habit is that he is known to ron engineering colleges. He was earlier lodged in the Visakhapatnam central jail after arrested.
When he was being shifted to jail from an Anakapalle court in 2022, he escaped when his handcuffs were removed for a brief while. Immediately thereafter he went underground and there were no clues about his whereabouts.
“Recently, two colleges in Moinabad complained of theft. During investigation in one of them, we recovered his fingerprints, which was the first clue. We further tracked him through CCTV cameras, though he invariably moves around wearing a mask. He likes to maintain a lavish lifestyle and that was another clue,” the commissioner said.
Incidentally, the pub where the firing took place is an outlet that Prabhakar frequents.
Prabhakar was taken to the Rajendranagar CCS for interrogation. Further investigation into the incident is underway, police said.
