‘Accused planned attack in 2020, bought 9 litre of acid’

NAGESH HAS BEEN SENT TO POLICE CUSTODY, BUT HE IS UNDERGOING TREATMENT FOR THE BULLET WOUND ON HIS LEG

BENGALURU: The man arrested for an acid attack on a 25-yearold woman had planned a similar attack in 2020 and procured nine litres of sulphuric acid, said Bengaluru police commissioner Kamal Pant on Saturday. The commissioner said the accused, Nagesh Babu, was arrested from Tiruvannamalai on Friday, claiming that police fired at him when he tried to escape while he was brought to Bengaluru.

Nagesh has been sent to police custody, but he is undergoing treatment for the bullet wound on his leg.

Talking to HT, Pant said the marriage of the victim’s sister was the trigger for Nagesh to plan the attack. When he came to know that her sister was engaged, he feared that the woman will also get married soon. “He got restless and approached the relatives of the girl with a marriage proposal. They refused. Since then, he began planning this attack,” he said.

The decision to attack her with acid was not impulsive, said the commissioner, adding that he had planned a similar attack in 2020. “He had been stalking her for more than seven years. During this period, he had approached her multiple times with a marriage proposal. In 2020, when she refused him firmly, he had procured nine litres of acid to attack her. Some friends of his, who came to know about the plan, convinced him to go ahead with the plan,” the commissioner said.

Because he had procured acid in 2020, when he decided to take revenge on her in the second half of April this year, he knew where and how to procure the sulphuric acid. Nagesh Babu used the letterhead of a private company in Bengaluru, which provides housekeeping services, to get the acid. He wrote an email to a supplier claiming that he needed two half-litre bottles of acid for sample and a large order of eight litres.

He procured acid by April 20, but didn’t attack her immediately. “He approached her once again on April 27. He asked her to marry him and this time, the girl firmly refused his proposal. That day even the manager of the company where the girl was working too warned him to stay away. When the girl informed her parents about his visit, they approached the attacker’s older brother,” said Pant.

Following this, on April 28, he went to the victim’s workplace and attacked her with the sample bottles he had procured.

“Hours before attacking her, he had sold all the material available in his garment factory and took cash payments. We believe that he had been planning this attack for a long time. A few years ago, he had sold some land in his hometown and started a garment factory in Bengaluru. In the past few months, he sold most of the equipment in the factory,” the commissioner said.

The commissioner said that soon after attacking the woman, he went to his older brother and told him what had happened. The older brother and another friend told Nagesh Babu to surrender before the police, but he told them that he would surrender only before the court. With his intention, he went to a sessions court and magistrate court in the city. When the lawyers told him that there is no option available for him to surrender before the court as the FIR has not reached the court, he fled Bengaluru. Police had formed seven teams to track down Nagesh Babu.