The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Looking back on two cases of murder Law & order

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Saturday, Oct 04, 2008
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Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Looking back on two cases of murder Law & order

A pickpocket was murdered in a casual manner, says L. Srikrishna

The city police dealt with two cases of grave crime in the same area a week back — at a juvenile home where an inmate was allegedly stoned to death by his friends and off busy Kamaraj Salai where a pickpocket was murdered in broad daylight by an armed gang .

What is baffling the public, who were witness to the second crime, is the casual manner in which the autorickshaw-borne gang committed the murder and left the spot. It was revealed that the victim was a habitual offender and wanted in a few cases of attempt to murder, chain snatching, robbery and waylaying.

A senior police officer involved in the investigation said that the pickpocket, a physically challenged (speech impaired) person, was identified as Senthil (38) of East Santhaipettai. For his friends and accomplices, Senthil was also known as ‘Oomai’ Senthil or ‘Ice’ Senthil. His modus operandi in chain snatching was: at railway stations in and around Madurai, he would identify women passengers wearing gold chains. When the train is about to leave the platform, he would snatch the chain and merge into the crowd, a police officer said. Whenever he was detained, based on some clues, the police were unable to proceed beyond a certain stage as he pleaded that he had no knowledge of such offences.

Senthil used to hide the stolen articles and take them out only after the hue and cry is over. He would pledge them with pawn brokers and spend on liquor and other anti-social activities. Whenever his friends threatened to divulge the information to police, he offered them money and even gold ornaments.

Irked friends

In the case of the juvenile offender’s death, police said that the deceased physically abused some of his friends. Irked by the ‘humiliation,’ they (friends) stoned him to death,when he was asleep. The deceased was in detention since March this year.A practising psychologist at the Government Rajaji Hospital said that lack of parental affection and frequent abuse of teenagers were some of the reasons which turned the youth into aggressive persons. “They have an urge to come up in life by hook or by crook…”

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