How a ‘cine extra’ from Bangalore, who struck at schools and hostels in Madras, was arrested

Between September 4, 1962 and November 6, 1963, a series of daytime burglaries occurred in various schools, hostels, lodges, and houses in Madras city. Almost all break-ins were recorded between 10.30 a.m. and 2.30 p.m. when the inmates were away. The burglar took away cash, clothes, jewellery, wristwatches, time-pieces, cameras, pen-knives, and fountain pens. Among the places he struck were the Headmaster’s room at St. Bead’s High School at Santhome and the residence of the Headmaster of the Christian College High School (Now MCC School) on Harrington Road at Chetpet.

At some of the crime scenes, the suspect had left behind iron rods with which he had broken open the lock. Forensic experts of the Single Digit Finger-Print Bureau lifted latent palm prints from the scenes of the early break-ins, hoping to match them with available fingerprints. But none of them matched with the records of burglars busted in the past. However, they found that all these were inter-se prints, which meant they belonged to the same person.

Identical to earlier fingerprints

Some months later, in November 1963, a burglary was reported at the house of the Assistant Collector of Customs at Alwarpet. The latent fingerprints developed from this site were found identical to those from the earlier crime scenes. With no fingerprint matching at the Single Digit Finger-Print Bureau of Madras, copies of the fingerprints were sent to the Finger Print Bureau at Vellore and the Single Digit Sections in the State as well as to the Finger Print Bureaux in India, looking for a match in their records. Meanwhile, pressure was mounting on the police to detect the case. That was when S. Palaniappan, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Crimes, Madras, decided to depute Malick Sherifuddin, an expert of the Single Digit Bureau, to check for a fingerprint match. Malick went to the Finger Print Bureau at Vellore and spent a week looking for a match, but to no avail.

However, Palaniappan remained convinced from the nature of offences that this must be the work of a professional criminal, whose fingerprints must be on record somewhere. In the past, criminals from Andhra and Mysore had operated in Madras city. He decided to check if there was a connection somewhere. Since the Finger Print Bureaux of the other States had not responded to the earlier messages to check for a match, the Deputy Commissioner of Police decided to send Malick to the neighbouring States to examine the fingerprint records there.

Malick first went to the Hyderabad Finger Print Bureau in December 1963. After five days, he realised that it was a futile exercise. Thereafter, he headed to Bangalore. Here he was lucky. While working with the experts of the Finger Print Bureau, he found a match — that of former convict B. Krishnappa, son of one Battaiah, who was a resident of Yeshwantpur in Bangalore. The latent fingerprints developed at the houses of the MCC School Headmaster and the Assistant Collector of Customs matched with the fingerprint of Krishnappa.

“He [Malick] immediately flashed the result to me on the trunk telephone. I immediately directed a Detective Sub-Inspector to go to Bangalore and meet the Expert (Malick) and arrest the culprit, if available,” recalled Palaniappan in an article, ‘Importance and need of search for latent fingerprints and palm prints of the culprits at the scenes of crime’, published in the April-June 1964 edition of The Madras Police Journal. “The Sub-Inspector met the Expert in Bangalore the next day and ascertained full particulars of the only conviction of the culprit and name enquiries. Though this culprit was dealt with under Section 562 Cr.P.C. in 1961, the Cubban Park Police had done well in having taken a photograph of the culprit and a copy of the same was secured by the Sub-Inspector and it was sent to me the next day. Copies of the photo were prepared promptly and supplied to the Detective Staff with suitable instructions,” he wrote.

Missing little toe

The Sub-Inspector learnt that the suspect had a missing little toe on his right foot and had tattooed a name in Kannada on his left forearm. Since Krishnappa was not spotted in Bangalore in the preceding three months, the Sub-Inspector surmised that he must be only in Madras, possibly surveying for his next target. “The entire crime staff were briefed about the culprit and an intensive search was made in Madras,” records Palaniappan. On January 5, 1964, Krishnappa was spotted in Kodambakkam and arrested by the Sub-Inspector and his Constable. The accused, on being interrogated, confessed to have been involved in all the 27 break-ins reported during 14 months. Incidentally, his last successful operation was just a day earlier when he laid his hands on properties worth about ₹1,000.

When the Madras Police dug up Krishnappa’s past, they learnt he was first arrested for a suspected house break-in in Bangalore in 1957, but was acquitted. Thereafter, he was involved in three break-ins in Bangalore in 1961. “He came to Madras in the middle of 1962 and entered the cine field and acted as a cine extra. He married a woman of Bangalore who had also come to Madras and was acting as a cine extra. He used to take cycles on hire from a particular cycle-shop and move about in the City on the days when there was no shooting in the Studios and he committed offences. He disposed of the stolen properties in Madras and Bangalore,” according to the article in The Madras Police Journal. In January 1964, he was convicted and sentenced to four years of rigorous imprisonment for the offences committed in Madras.