Chennai, June 13: A mysterious death eventually turned out to be murder. Basing their investigation on the postmortem report, suburban police arrested six persons for the killing of P Sakthivel (29), whose body was found on the roadside near Kudrathur on December 24 last year. Sakthivel was murdered for eloping with the daughter of his employer. Police arrested the girl’s uncle Thyagarajan (30), his friend Poyyamozhi (40), and Senthi (22), Murugan (28), Velu (30) and Ramesh (22) who were hired for the deed.
Meticulous investigation by the Kundrathur police inspector, who had first registered it as a case of suspicious death’, yielded results. The postmortem report had suggested strangulation as the cause for death and it led to the arrest of the accused after six months, S R Jangid, suburban commissioner of police told the media.
Investigation revealed that Sakthivel had worked as a driver for Nagaraj, former president of the Melathirupalkudi Panchayat in Tiruvallur. “Sakthivel fell in love with Vaigamalar, Nagaraj’s daughter, and eloped with her. Nagaraj suffered a paralytic attack due to shock and was bedridden. Furious, Vaigamalar’s uncle Thyagaraj decided to eliminate Sakthivel to avenge the family’s name being defamed. Nagaraj was a recipient of the President of India’s medal for his work as panchayat president,” said R Samuthirapandi, deputy commissioner, Ambattur.
Thyagaraj learnt that Sakthivel and his niece were staying near Chromepet and that Sakthivel was employed as a driver in a firm there. Thyagaraj took the help of his friend Poyyamozhi to get rid of Sakthivel. Poyyamozhi and his friend Arun, who is absconding, hired a supari’ gang from Ponneri to do the job. They paid the gang Rs 2 lakh.
On evening of December 23, the gang members waited in a Maruti Omni van for Sakthivel near his office. As Sakthivel emerged, they told him that there was some problem with the vehicle and sought his help to push it. It then became all too easy for them to push Sakthivel into the vehicle and drive away. They strangled him and dumped his body on the Kundrathur-Thirumudivakkam Road.
Vaigaimalar, completely unaware about her uncle having hatched a plot to get rid of Sakthivel, thought he had died in an accident and had returned to her parent’s house.
Police made the breakthrough after analysing the call records of Vaigaimalar’s relatives. The search for Arun is on.
—Agencies