5 of Dandupalya gang get life term

BANGALORE: A Bangalore sessions court on Wednesday sentenced five members of the dreaded Dandupalya gang to life imprisonment in a murder case.
Soon after the verdict, the convicted persons created a ruckus on the court premises by attacking a photographer and bystanders.
The gangsters from Dandupalya, a village off Hoskote, spread terror in the city two years ago by slitting the throats of women and the aged and then robbing them.
IV Additional Sessions Judge B. Yoginath ordered that the convicted — Venkatesh alias Chandra, Dodda Hanuma alias Hanuma and his wife Lakshmi, Nalla Thimma and Munikrishna alias Krishna — pay a fine of Rs 30,000 or undergo rigorous imprisonment of six months.
They were convicted of killing 72-year-old S. Ramakrishnan at his house on Haudin Road near Ulsoor Lake in September 2000, said public prosecutor Durga Sinha Myageri. Among the convicted, Dodda Hanuma, along with three others, had escaped from a sub-jail in Chittoor district in September 2000 and regrouped to kill at least 20 persons in the city and elsewhere, the police said.
Some 15 members of the gang are facing trial in murder cases, while two key members are still at large.
Another conviction is expected on March 22, sources said. The police said the Dandupalya gang killed more than 100 in Bangalore, Mysore, Hubli, Hassan and Mangalore districts and also in Andhra Pradesh. Lakshmi Hanuma