An armed gang chased and brutally hacked a 40-year-old man in full public view on a street opposite the Tiruvanmiyur market on Thursday evening. The victim, a DMK functionary in the area, succumbed to cut injuries on the way to a hospital. Police suspect gang rivalry to be the reason behind the murder.
Sources with the Thiruvanmiyur police identified the man as Kandhan alias Mangaleri Kandhan (40) hailing from Mangaleri Area in Tiruvanmiyur.
He ran a broiler shop on East Coast Road. He was involved in over 12 cases of crime, including five murders, but had claimed to have renounced a life of crime from 2010, police said.
“Around 5.15 p.m. he came out of his house and was heading to his shop. When he was opposite the Valmiki temple on ECR, the armed gang chased him and hacked him repeatedly with knives and sickles.
Even as he was lying in a pool of blood, the gangsters strolled across the road into the bus terminus and vanished,” said an investigation officer, quoting eye-witness accounts.
Tiruvanmiyur police rushed him to a hospital but he died on the way.
“Three persons have been detained. Investigation is on,” the officer said.
The murder, which occurred in a busy market area and the main junction in Tiruvanmiyur, where hundreds gather in the evenings, sent shockwaves through the locality.
