Police have arrested three persons including two juveniles on Thursday, for the murder of a mason in Pallikaranai.
According to police, Narasimma, a 25-year-old labourer from Odisha was murdered at the construction site in Medavakkam near Tambaram on October 6. Narasimma was working as a mason to construct a two-storey building in Babu Nagar, Medavakkam.
Narasimma had come to Chennai a few months ago and worked at a few other construction sites in the city too.
On the morning of October 6, he was found lying in a pool of blood with injuries on his head, face and other parts of the body.
Police suspected the cause of death to have been due to an assault with sharp weapons. His body was taken to the Tambaram Taluk Government Hospital in Chrompet for a post-mortem examination.
Pallikaranai inspector Arokia Ravindran investigated the case.
“I spoke to the watchman at nearby construction sites. One watchman said that he had heard some noises on the night before the body was found. He wanted to go check on them, and alerted others sleeping near him. But they refused to come. When the watchman asked why, they said that one month ago, they had heard similar noises and when they checked, some teenagers were stealing iron rods from the site and threatened them with a knife,” said the inspector.
After this, the police started a hunt for those notorious for stealing iron rods.
“Some of my colleagues said that they had warned some teenagers who tried to steal rods few weeks ago. Based on that information, we searched for the juveniles,” said the inspector.
The police apprehended Rajesh (22) and another juvenile who claimed they were innocent. Later, they searched for two others who were absconding.
“We were intrigued by their absence and nabbed one juvenile who reached Chennai on Thursday. Upon questioning, he confessed to the crime. We arrested three of them but one juvenile is still absconding,” said Mr. Ravindran.
While Rajesh has been remanded to Puzhal prison, the two teenagers have been sent to the juvenile home.
