The police on Sunday arrested two men and a woman for the brutal murder of a 42-year-old man in Veppampattu on May 30.
The three had lured the man into their home, killed him, stolen his jewellery, cut up his body and burnt it, just over the border in Andhra Pradesh.
According to government railway police (GRP) personnel, A. Kalimuthu of Villivakkam, was a duck egg merchant. He supplied eggs to various cities, including Mumbai and Kolkata. On May 30, his wife, Arulselvi, filed a ‘missing person’ complaint, after he apparently disappeared from Chennai Central Station.
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A special team was formed, headed by GRP inspector S. Sekar.“We looked into Kalimuthu’s mobile phone records and found that he had made calls to a woman, Sujatha (30) of Veppampattu in Tiruvallur district. When we tracked her mobile phone, we found that she had made a lot of calls to a man, 25-year-old Velu of Thiruninravur,” said Ponramu, deputy superintendent of police, GRP.
Velu, police said, was a butcher who also stole motorcycles. The team arrested Velu, who, when interrogated, said Kalimuthu had been having an affair with Sujatha, whose husband was unemployed.
“Kalimuthu wore a lot of jewellery, and Sujatha wanted to steal it. She told her husband and Velu about her plan to murder Kalimuthu and loot his belongings. The three of them then hatched the plot. On May 30, Kalimuthu came to Vepampattu with two packets of biryani and a bottle of alcohol. Sujatha met him, and they took an autorickshaw to her home,” said Mr. Sekar.
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At the house, the two started drinking. “At this point, Velu and Murugesan, who were hiding in the bathroom came out and stabbed Kalimuthu, killing him. They then severed the head and cut the rest of the body into several pieces, and packed it all into a polythene bag,” he said.
Velu, Sujatha and her husband then got on two motorcycles, with the polythene bag and rode 85 km to the Pichatur lake area, near Chittoor district in Andhra Pradesh.
“Sujatha was riding pillion and carried the bag. The three of them burnt the pieces of the body and buried the head about 10 km away from the lake, in a forest. When we went there we found a few jackals had dug out the head,” said Sekar.
The three had taken over 10 sovereigns of gold jewellery and Rs. 50,000 in cash that Kalimuthu was carrying.
On May 31, they bought three bottles of disinfectant solution and tried to clean all the blood in the house. They also repainted the walls.
“However, when we got to the house, we found a few bloodstains. It confirmed our suspicion as to where the crime had been committed,” said Mr. Ponramu.
Based on Velu’s confession, special teams have been sent to Coimbatore to nab Sujatha and her husband.