Mangaluru: Presence of mind shown by home guards Harish and Mallika and coordinated efforts by police personnel helped Mangaluru City Police nab four persons involved in murder of Hindu activist Deepak Rao at Katipalla within hours of the incident on Wednesday.

Police personnel braved grave risk to their lives to nab the accused earning them appreciation from state police chief Neelamani N Raju who has given the team cash award of Rs 1.20 lakh.

While police inspectors Shantharam and Rafeeq K M had to open fire to subdue a marauding Pinky Rizwan and Rizwan who brandished swords at them at Daddi Guri Badagayedapadavu under Bajpe police station limits, PSI Sheetal Algur and his team comprising ASI Chandrashekar B, head constable Mahesh H K and police constables Suresha and Mohammad Hussain made the initial breakthrough in nabbing Naushad and Mohammad after a car chase at Mijar.

Giving details of the cinematic arrests, Kamal Pant, Additional Director-General of police (ADGP), (law and order) said police acted swiftly on sketchy information of the car used by the accused in fleeing the murder scene.

It was Harish and Mallika who first spotted the getaway vehicle at Moorukaveri Jodu Marga check post and when he attempted to flag it down, the occupants took a U-turn and fled. The duo relayed this information to Mulki PS which activated Algur and his team, Pant said.

When they spotted the vehicle and directed the occupants to stop, Pant said the accused attempted to run over Algur, who jumped in to a ditch to save his life. Algur subsequently commandeered a private vehicle when the official vehicle developed snag at this point and gave chase.

After nearly 90 minutes of chase, Algur managed to force the vehicle off the road by firing on it and the car fell in to a ditch. Police nabbed Naushad and Irshan while Nawaz and Rizwan escaped.

Reinforcements sent by city police chief T R Suresh to the area in city crime branch PI Shantharam and Panambur PI Rafeeq saw the duo overpower the escaped duo, who sustained bullet injuries to their leg in the skirmish.

They are being treated at a hospital; Pant said adding initial interrogation has not revealed any concrete reason why the quartet fatally assaulted Deepak. “We are probing all angles including the tiff over tying of buntings as reasons for the murder,” Pant said.

About incidents where Mudassir, a businessman sustained stone pelting injuries near Govindadasa College and Basheer, a hotelier received stab wound injuries at Kottara Chowki later on Wednesday night, Pant said it is premature to state if they are the fall out of the attack on Deepak.

While Mudassir is out of danger, Basheer is in a critical state, Pant said adding investigation is underway with former city police chief M Chandra Sekhar, IGP (CID) monitoring it.