Kotwal Ramachandra was a gangster in

Bangalore Bangalore (), List of renamed places in India, officially Bengaluru (), is the Capital city, capital and largest city of the Indian state of Karnataka. It has a population of more than and a metropolitan area, metropolitan population of a ...

in the 1970s and 1980s. He covered Bengaluru North and operated in Kodandarampura and Srirampura there. He was a contemporary of rival M. P. Jayaraj. The two had a power struggle over who would rule the

underworld under the crime boss Oil Kumar. Jayaraj was successful in bumping off Ramachandra with the help of Agni Shridhar, Bachchan and Varadharaja Nayak.

Early life

Ramachandra was from

Shimoga Shimoga, officially known as Shivamogga, is a city and the district headquarters of Shimoga district in the central part of the state of Karnataka, India. The city lies on the banks of the Tunga River. Being the gateway for the hilly region of ...

and worked in the

Indian Navy The Indian Navy is the maritime branch of the Indian Armed Forces. The President of India is the Supreme Commander of the Indian Navy. The Chief of Naval Staff, a four-star admiral, commands the navy. As a blue-water navy, it operates si ...

for a brief period. He was over six feet tall, and used knives and sickles as his weapons. He was backed by some politicians in his heyday.

Career

Ramachandra was known to carry out random attacks of innocents in public in order to invoke fear that led him to develop more unwanted enemies but alleviate the situations but not his market value as he assumed.

Political links

Ramachandra gained access to political circles when he started working as driver and body guard to then Chief Minister of

Karnataka Karnataka (; ISO: , , also known as Karunāḍu) is a state in the southwestern region of India. It was formed on 1 November 1956, with the passage of the States Reorganisation Act. Originally known as Mysore State , it was renamed ''Karnat ...

, D. Devaraj Urs. He threatened

Ramakrishna Hegde Ramakrishna Mahabaleshwar Hegde (29 August 1926 – 12 January 2004) was an Indian politician who served as the tenth Chief Minister of Karnataka for three terms between 1983 and 1988. He was elected to the Karnataka Legislative Assembly in 1 ...

, another Chief Minister with a knife at an open house that was photographed by press.. He was accused of barging into the CM's daughters' Beauty Parlour in Sadashivanagar to threaten them. The ensuing search forced him to exit Bengaluru and seek shelter in the Tumakuru farmhouse where he was murdered.

In popular culture

A motion picture in Kannada, ''

Aa Dinagalu ''Aa Dinagalu'' () is a 2007 Indian Kannada-language crime drama film based on the non-fiction novel ''Daadaagiriya Dinagalu'' by Agni Shridhar, and directed by K. M. Chaitanya. It stars Chethan Kumar in the lead role. The supporting cast feat ...

'', directed by

K. M. Chaitanya K. M. Chaitanya (Kannada: ಚೈತನ್ಯ) is a film director, documentary maker and theater person. His first feature film Aa dinagalu in Kannada, won several awards including the Filmfare Awards South for Best Director and Best Feature Film i ...

, prominently depicts the rise and murder of Ramachandra. Agni Sreedhar has written an autobiography, ''My Days in the Underworld-Rise of Bangalore Mafia'' (Westland, 2013), in which the murder of Kotwal Ramachandra has been highlighted.

Murder trial

Jayaraj helped the four killers who murdered Ramachandra and disposed of his bones in the

Bay of Bengal The Bay of Bengal is the northeastern part of the Indian Ocean, bounded on the west and northwest by India, on the north by Bangladesh, and on the east by Myanmar and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands of India. Its southern limit is a line betwee ...

. He arranged for dog bones to be buried instead, with an intention to mislead the investigation and exonerate the killers.Agni Sreedhar. Chapter 3

Death

He was killed on 22 March 1986 by a four-member goonda team, supported by Jayaraj. He was killed in a farm house near Allalasandra,

Tumkur Tumkur, officially renamed as Tumakuru, is a city located in the southern part of Indian state of Karnataka. Tumkur is situated at a distance of northwest of Bangalore, the state capital along NH 48 and NH 73. It is the headquarters of the ...

. His death was not known to outside world for more than a month. Some of his associates continued criminal activity after his death.

References

Bibliography

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Ramachandra, Kotwal Indian gangsters 1986 deaths 1986 murders in India Indian robbers Murdered criminals Outlaws People from Bangalore Urban district Year of birth missing People murdered in Karnataka