The Coimbatore City Police on Saturday nabbed murder accused Yaser Arafat in Visakhapatnam.
The police were on the lookout for him on charges of murdering a woman and cutting her body into pieces in an apartment complex on Avinashi Road in the second week of February.
In hotel
Coimbatore City Police Commissioner A.K. Viswanathan told journalists that a team guided by Assistant Commissioner R. Gunasekaran and led by Inspectors R. Srinivasalu, S. Chandra Mohan and Sub Inspector Dhanasekaran nabbed him at a hotel there.
Initial investigations suggested that he had murdered Sarojini, 54, wife of Natarajan, for the jewellery that she had been wearing.
He was in need of money as he had spent the money that he had obtained after pawning 30 sovereigns of jewellery he had got from his house in Melapalayam, Tirunelveli.
Neighbour
In Coimbatore, Arafat was a neighbour of the woman’s family in the apartment complex.
After murdering the woman on February 13, he cut the body into pieces, packed it into three suitcases, disposed of one of the suitcases and was waiting to dispose of the other two. By then a week had passed. When foul smell started emanating from his apartment, neighbours called him to complain. But he fled the place.
Police sources said that soon after it became clear that Yaser Arafat was the man they were searching for, the teams formed for the purpose pursued various clues they had.
Digital footprint
A team that followed his digital footprint traced him to Visakhapatnam. It produced him before a magistrate court before taking him into custody. The team was expected to bring him to Coimbatore on Monday.
