BENGALURU: Motorists on the Bengaluru-Nelamangala highway witnessed an unusual drama on Saturday: Two men bashing up each other for a woman in her presence!
But it did not end there. The climax was even more filmi: While cops booked cases against both the men, the 38-year-old woman claimed she’s not married to either of them, but to someone else. And eventually, she walked away with a ‘friend’ of hers. The entire episode was filmed by scores of onlookers on their cellphones.
The drama unfolded at 11am at
Bavikere Cross
, a tiny village junction on National Highway-48 (Bengaluru-Pune) between Tumakuru and Nelamangala. Traffic towards Bengaluru was affected for some time as the curious crowd, mostly vehicle occupants, stopped to see the action.
Police said the woman, identified as Shashikala, was living with
Chikkabidarukallu Murthy
, a tractor driver. “Shashikala tied the knot with Rangaswamy in 2000 and the marriage was over in 2010. Then,
Shashikala lived with
Ramesh Kumar
, a supervisor at a garment factory. In 2015, she found another man, Kumar, but got separated from him in six months. Since 2017, Shashikala has been living with Chikkabidarukallu Murthy, a married man with two children,” police said.
Meanwhile, Siddaraju, a cab driver in the garment factory where Shashikala worked, proposed to marry her. “Since Murthy was married and Siddaraju a bachelor, Shashikala decided to marry the latter. On Saturday, Shashikala was standing with Siddaraju at a bus stand when Murthy came and attacked him,” police said.
As Siddaraju and Murthy exchanged blows, passersby made futile attempts to stop them. The fight came to a halt only after Nelamangala police intervened and took all the three to the police station. Shashikala told police: “Both are my friends and are jealous of each other.” When asked if she would marry any one of the two, she replied in the negative. By then, a man, claiming to be a friend of Shashikala arrived and she walked away with him.