A burglar tied up a 55-year-old woman to a plastic chair and slit her throat, causing her to bleed to death in her house in Bharati Nagar, Taramani early on Friday. Police suspect the woman was the lone witness to a burglary committed by the suspect nearby.
The deceased, Pandiammal, was living in the rented house in Thapathy Street since 2012, along with her husband Rathinasamy (62), a security guard at a firm in SRP Tools in Taramani. Pandiammal ran a petty shop from her house, selling grocery items. The couple had no children.
“Around 5.30 a.m., Rathinasamy woke our family and said his wife was dead. We ran in to find her lying in a pool of blood on the floor. He told us that he had found her seated on the chair with her hands and legs tied up and that he had untied her,” the victim’s neighbour Sargunam told The Hindu .
C. Anbazhagan, the couple’s landlord, who lives in the adjoining portion of the house, had gone to Tiruchi with his family on Tuesday. The burglary took place at his house early on Friday. “Rs. 30,000 in cash, 3.4 sovereigns of jewellery, a wrist watch and a camera are missing from the house,” said Anbazhagan, who arrived in Chennai on Friday morning.
According to neighbours, Pandiammal cooked food around 4 a.m. every day outside the house and her husband comes from night duty around 5.30 a.m. to pack lunch to head to his double shift at the firm.
“She might have spotted the burglar in her landlord’s house, following which he might have gagged her and dragged her into her house. She was tied to the chair and beaten with a blunt object. Later, her throat was slit,” an investigating officer said. Half-cooked rice and utensils were seen outside the narrow street near the victim’s residence.
