THOOTHUKUDI
A 23-year-old suspect arrested on Monday evening in the murder case of a software engineer was remanded in judicial custody on Tuesday.
According to the police, the accused, M. Rajagopalan of Rajavallipuram, Tirunelveli, allegedly murdered S. Muthukrishnan (47) of Rice Mill Street, VE Road, Thoothukudi, a software engineer working in the USA, who went missing on June 22.
Thoothukudi police found the body of Muthukrishnan in a decomposed state inside a car at an isolated place in a stone quarry in Thalaiyuthu, Tirunelveli, on Monday. Later, the man missing case was altered to a case of murder under Section 302 of the IPC after the police found the body with a cut injury in the neck.
Sections 120 (b) (criminal conspiracy), 294 (b) (using abusive words), 363 (kidnapping) and 201 (causing disappearance of evidence of the offence) were also invoked in the altered case.
Investigation revealed that Muthukrishnan allegedly misbehaved and tortured a final year law student, the wife of the accused. The student was in the office of an advocate in Palayamkottai frequented by the deceased to get legal assistance for divorce proceedings against his wife.
Rajagopalan, the police said, abducted Muthukrishnan with the help of a gang in a car in Palayamkottai and hacked him to death. The body was dumped in the car and pushed into a pond in a stone quarry at Thalaiyuthu.
While verifying the call log on Muthukrishnan’s cell phone, the investigating team found calls made to the accused. The accused had also withdrawn ₹10,000 twice from an ATM using Muthukrishnan’s card. The police are on the lookout for three more persons involved in the crime.
