Tambaram, March 02: A 43-year-old Customs official, working at the Air Cargo Complex of Chennai Airport, was hacked to death by an armed gang at his house in Adambakkam late on Sunday night.
His wife and their two sons, seated inside a car, were also targeted by the assailants, but they had a narrow escape.
Chennai Suburban Police said the victim, P.Samson, a Customs Examining Officer, was a resident of 5th Cross Street in Officers’ Colony, Adambakkam. His wife, Daisy, was also with the Customs Department, working as a Preventive Officer at Chennai Port. On Sunday morning, they left in their car along with their school-going sons, Eric and Erwin, for Chengalpattu to attend the final rites of a relative. They returned home and went to Koyambedu to see off a relative. After dinner at Ashok Nagar, they reached home at 10.50 p.m.
Samson parked his car in the portico and returned to close the main gate of the house, when a man pounced on him and attacked him with a sickle. Shocked, Daisy and her two sons, remained inside the car. Moments later, more men came to the spot and indiscriminately hacked Samson, killing him instantly.
The men also targeted Ms. Daisy, her sons and the car, but soon fled from the spot. Ms. Daisy called the police control from her mobile and a patrol team of Adambakkam police station reached her house, but was unable to trace the assailants.
11 surrender
Adambakkam police said they named 11 persons, including Paulina, a woman living opposite Samson’s house, her sons, Ilayaraja and Manikandan, as accused in the First Information Report. Nine of them – Ilayaraja and Manikandan, and their friends, Lakshmanan, Nagoor, Vinod, Gani, Prasanna Kumar, Gopinath and Rajasekar – surrendered in court in Chengalpattu on Monday morning. A search is on for Paulina and a male accomplice. Paulina, police said, built a small temple on a public road and Samson had donated for its festivals.
However, when he stopped giving money she showered abuses on Samson and his family members, picking up quarrel with him at every given chance in the past 2 to 3 years. Samson’s body was taken to Tambaram Taluk Government Hospital in Chromepet for post-mortem. His relatives who came to the hospital said that fearing for the life of his family members and property, Samson had installed a couple of cameras in his house. Visuals of the murder being committed were obtained.
Jude, the victim’s brother-in-law, said Samson moved into the locality in 2005. Unable to put up with the alleged harassment from Paulina any further, he began to build a new house on Hoppmen Street in Alandur, near his mother’s house. It was nearing completion and the family was preparing to shift there in April.
Police said Paulina, around 50 years old, had been charged with several nefarious offences in the past, including drug peddling and flesh trade.
–Agencies