The Crime Branch-CID police in Tiruppur district have cracked a 12-year-old murder case by arresting four persons, within three weeks of the start of investigation, based on leads obtained from tower dump analysis software tool.
The case pertains to the murder of P. Murugesan (52) of Ponneri near Gudimangalam in the district, during September 2012. His body was found at Sundakkapalayam village where he worked in a farm belonging to one Maniyan. Though Murugesan’s mobile phone, which was found missing by the Tiruppur police at the scene of crime, was recovered later at Nagercoil in Kanyakumari, there was no further breakthrough. The case was closed as the investigation until 2019 did not yield results.
Subsequently, Murugesan’s son Gopalakrishnan (32) had moved the Madras High Court pleading for transfer of the case to CB-CID from the rural police. On the High Court directive issued on July 14, 2023, the case was transferred to the CB-CID Tiruppur on January 5, 2024.
Under the supervision of Sivakumar, Deputy Superintendent of Police, CB-CID, Coimbatore, a team led by Radha, Inspector of Police, Tirupur, narrowed down on four persons— T. Eswaran (55) from Sundakkapalayam village, who was formerly president of Ponneri village panchayat, K. Loganathan (34), his friend K. Ponraj (35), and M. Vetrivel (75).
The investigators could surmise that Murugesan had developed enmity with Eswaran after the latter had developed an extramarital affair with a woman who was the former’s relative. Loganathan had nursed a grudge against Murugesan as the former had to cede the responsibility of maintaining the agricultural land to the latter at the instance of the owner Manian. Vetrivel had developed enmity with Murugesan after the latter had imposed restrictions on use of the well water from the land belonging to Manian. The trio, and Loganathan’s friend Ponraj, together hatched a conspiracy to murder Murugesan.
Accordingly, Vetrivel had invited Murugesan for consuming liquor at the agricultural field on the night of July 14, 2012, and smashed the latter’s head with a boulder, killing him on the spot.
After the murder, the murderers took away the mobile phone belonging to Murugesan and later flung it inside the Coimbatore -Nagercoil passenger train, in order to mislead the investigators into believing that the murderer had escaped to Nagercoil with the phone.
The four accused were produced before the Chief Judicial Magistrate in Tiruppur and lodged in the Coimbatore Central Prison on Tuesday night.
