The attacker left behind an AK 47 gun in the rear seat of the Audi car, police said.
A man armed with an AK-47 tried to kidnap a top industrialist in Hyderabad from his car this morning.
K Nityananda Reddy, Vice Chairman of Aurobindo Pharma, had finished a morning walk at 7:20 am in the popular KBR Park in the city's fancy Banjara Hills area. After he sat in his car, a man pushed his way into the white Audi from the left into the front seat, took out an AK-47 from a bag and pointed it at Mr Reddy.
"I told him if you want I will give you money, even as I pushed the nozzle of the gun towards the roof of the car and shouted for help," Mr Reddy said.
Mr Reddy's brother, Prasad, saw his brother in a scuffle with the intruder and rushed to the car to intervene. Three bullets were fired inside the car. The two men managed to overpower the assailant but the grappling continued outside the car and at least five more shots were fired - three of them into the road and the rest into the air. Apparently there were no more bullets in the rifle.
Prasad Reddy held the attacker from behind, but he bit Mr Reddy and ran away. Nobody was injured. The attacker escaped, leaving behind his AK-47 and a bag with clothes.
Mr Nityananda Reddy said he did not recognise the assailant and is unable to guess why he was attacked. "He was about 30-32 years old," he said.
Hyderabad Police Commissioner Mahendar Reddy said the weapon used by and left behind by the assailant was in fact an AK-47 that had been reported missing by a Greyhounds cop in December 2013. "An FIR was registered in April this year in Narsingi police station under Cyberabad," the commissioner said.
How the AK-47 got into the hands of the assailant, what was his motive is not clear yet. "We have several clues and hope to crack this at the earliest," the police chief said.
Eyewitnesses said they were too shocked to react. Sreedhar, who was on a bicycle on the other side of the road, said he first heard the gunshots and mistook them for fire crackers. He saw two men grappling with a third who managed to get away and almost hopped across the road. "He did not look in a panic or hurry, it was almost as though he was jogging away casually," Sreedhar told NDTV.
Aurobindo Pharma is a India's fourth biggest drugmaker by market value. Mr Reddy is its whole-time director and vice chairman and has been associated with the company as a promoter. He supervises the overall affairs of the company.
Incidentally, Aurobindo Pharma was named one of the accused in the first chargesheet in the Jagan Mohan Reddy disproportionate assets case.