P. Pandi alias ‘Attack’ Pandi (36) of Villapuram here has moved the Madras High Court Bench here seeking anticipatory bail in a case related to the murder of N. Suresh Babu alias ‘Pottu’ Suresh, once a close aide of former Union Minister M.K. Alagiri, in the city on January 31, 2013.
In his advance bail application, Pandi claimed to be hailing from a respectable family and that he had been falsely implicated in the case in order to bring disrepute to him and his family. He also claimed to be suffering from asthma and under regular treatment for the illness.
Stating that ‘Pottu’ Suresh was waylaid near Sathya Sai Nagar and hacked to death by a six-member gang, the petitioner said the officials attached to Subramaniapuram police station in the city were initially clueless about the assailants and the motive behind the murder.
The case could be cracked only on February 2, 2013, when a gang surrendered before a Judicial Magistrate at Natham in Dindigul district. The petitioner’s name was included in the case after the police reportedly obtained a confession statement from those who surrendered.
Even as per the confession, the petitioner was not present at the place of occurrence, he said, and accused the police of having foisted a series of cases against him due to political motives. He recalled that the High Court had quashed his preventive detention under the Goondas Act in November 2011.
Since then, he was implicated in more than eight cases registered by the District Crime Branch, Avaniapuram, Perungudi and Keeraithurai police under various charges, including Section 307 (attempt to murder) of the Indian Penal Code. The cases were booked between May 2012 and January 2013.
Stating that the court had granted him anticipatory bail in most of those cases, he said a writ petition filed by his 76-year-old mother in 2012 accusing the police of attempting to kill him in a fake encounter was still pending in the High Court Bench.
