BENGALURU: A steel distribution company employee lost Rs 80 lakh after he fell off his scooter and lost consciousness in Cantonment railway bridge underpass Saturday.Police are yet to ascertain if it is a robbery or theft as the injured man, Waseem Akram, said he felt like someone pushed him from behind while he was riding the scooter with the cash bag on his footrest. Akram’s employer, Haseen Begh, who runs a steel business with 15 employees in Azeez Sait Industrial Estate near Nayandahalli, supplies steel, including waste steel, to shops in multiple locations in the city. Akram regularly collected payments from clients for the materials supplied to them. On the day of the incident, Akram collected cash from clients in Peenya Industrial Area and JC Nagar. He was heading towards Shivajinagar to collect more money and then to Chamarajpet. He had collected around Rs 80 lakh in cash and had about 160 bundles of notes. He kept the cash bag on the footrest of his scooter. An autorickshaw driver passing by the underpass around 8.30pm noticed Akram lying unconscious on the roadside. He rushed him to a hospital on Queens Road. Begh was waiting for Akram to return with the cash and tried to call him at 9pm. The auto driver responded, saying he found Akram, who had sustained a head injury, unconscious after falling from the scooter. When Begh rushed to the hospital, Akram had regained consciousness by then. When Begh asked Akram how he was injured, the latter said he’d collected cash from Peenya and JC Nagar and while riding in the underpass, he felt like someone pushed him from behind. He lost balance and crashed into the underpass wall and fell from his scooter. Akram said his scooter and bag might still be at the spot. The auto driver said he remembered seeing the two-wheeler but was not aware of any bag. Begh then sent his brother to the underpass to check the scooter and bag, but he only found the two-wheeler. A police officer said Akram is not clear whether someone pushed him from behind or a car hit him. He remembers the scooter and a car colliding before he crashed into the wall. There is no CCTV camera at the spot. “We are checking cameras from surrounding areas,” the officer said. A case has been registered under Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) Section 303 (theft).
