The Special Task Force of the Puducherry police foiled a murder plan and arrested 14 persons, including the prime accused in the murder of the former Speaker V.M.C. Sivakumar in Karaikal last year.
Sivakumar was murdered by a gang led by the prime accused Vikraman of T.R. Pattinam, Karaikal, and abetted by Ezhilarasi of Karaikal on January 3, 2017. Vikraman, a wanted criminal, has been at large, while Ezhilarasi was arrested and enlarged on bail.
Deputy Inspector-General of Police (Law and Order) Rajiv Ranjan told a press conference here on Monday that a special team headed by Superintendent of Police (North) Rachna Singh was constituted following information that Ezhilarasi was planning to eliminate J. Anand, a relative of her husband Ramu.
Ramu was killed allegedly by his first wife Vinodha in 2010.
Based on a tip-off, a team led by inspector Karthikeyan of STF arrested Ezhilarasi alias Meera, 35, Vikram alias Vikraman, 39, and Susai alias Susairaj, 29, from a luxury hotel on Kamaraj Salai in Puducherry on Sunday.
Sustained interrogation of the trio revealed that J. Anand was the mastermind of the murder of Ramu.
She wanted to eliminate Anand and his lawyer to avenge the murder of her husband.
Conspiracy unravelled
Mr. Ranjan said Anand had also planned to murder Ezhilarasi.
On Sunday, the three, along with 12 others, checked into a hotel to hatch a plan under the garb of celebrating the birthday of Vikraman. They confessed to their involvement in the crime.
Based on their confession, the police arrested Vicky alias Vignesh, 23, Gowsi alias Gowsiga Balasubramanian, 35, Dinesh alias Sebastian, 22, Murali alias Muraliraj, 20, Aravind, 23, Guna alias Gunasekaran, 22, Ramu alias Ramkumar, 24, Deepulan, 22, Veerappan, 28, Thanigai alias Thanigaiarasu, 27, and Soundarapandian alias Gopalakrishnan, 26, all hailing from Puducherry and seized sharp weapons from them.
Cases were registered against them under the Arms Act.
Ezhilarasi is allegedly involved in three murder cases, while Vikraman is involved in two murder cases. All the 14 accused have a criminal background, Mr. Ranjan said.
The DIG said the police would be submitting a fresh proposal to detain Ezhilarasi under the Goondas Act.
