A special team of police from Madurai city arrested >“proclaimed offender” ‘Attack’ Pandi wanted in the >2013 murder of ‘Pottu’ Suresh , a close confidant of former Union Minister M.K. Alagiri, in Mumbai on Monday.
The Madurai City Commissioner of Police Shailesh Kumar Yadav confirmed the arrest by the Deputy Commissioner of Police (Law and Order) Samant Rohan Rajendra from an undisclosed location in Mumbai.
The police said Pandi, a former DMK member was eluding arrest ever since the brutal daylight murder of Suresh in Madurai on January 31, 2013. An armed gang hacked him to death after waylaying him while he was returning home in his car.
Though the city police >arrested a few , and few others later surrendered in courts in this connection, Pandi was absconding.
It’s said, Pandi, who was seen close to the then South Zone organising secretary of the DMK, Mr. Alagiri, however, felt that he was being sidelined in the party as well as in Mr. Alagiri’s family because of Suresh, who was serving as personal secretary to Mr. Alagiri, when he was Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers.
A police officer who is privy to the case said that Pandi had held negotiations with the city police through his advocate and promised to surrender if one of the big shots in the DMK was arrested in the murder case.
“Whenever we asked for the motive and evidence of the involvement of the big shot, he would say that he would produce them only after the arrest,” the official said.
Meanwhile, few attempts by the police to nab Pandi, who was declared a proclaimed offender, failed, which the police officer said, as Pandi got information about the police plan in advance.
Pandi had also spoken to few journalists in the city over phone explaining the circumstances for which he was eluding arrest. He feared for his life claiming that he would be killed by police.
Pandi, who is a history-sheeter under the Vilakkuthoon police station (later his files were transferred to Keeraithurai police station under which the are he resides falls), shot to fame after he was accused in the burning of the office of Tamil daily Dinakaran in which three employees were killed. However, he was acquitted in the case.
Several criminal cases including kidnap, attempt to murder and land-grabbing were pending against him, the police said.
A police officer said that the arrest of Pandi remained a challenge to the police for the last three years.
