Rape accused who allegedly killed mother arrested in Mumbai

Daswant was caught from a race course; to be produced in court today

Chennai: 02/12/2017, For City: Daswant who is suspected to have murdered his mother Sarala in Kundrathur.

“How did you trace me? Oh my god, it is unbelievable!” These were reportedly the words Daswant, the 23-year-old accused of sexually assaulting and murdering a seven-year-old girl, and more recently, suspected to have bludgeoned his mother to death, uttered when police officers apprehended him in Mumbai on Wednesday.

Ambattur Deputy Commissioner of Police Sarvesh Raj told The Hindu , “We had been working on several leads for the last three days. We wanted to ensure that he was caught at the earliest. Everything was done by the conventional method of investigation.”

Daswant was charged for raping and killing a seven-year-old girl who was his neighbour last February in Mugaliwakkam. He kept her body in his house for a day, and later he disposed it under a bridge, setting fire to it a day later. After committing the crime, he misled the police and media as a witness for a couple of days before his arrest.

He was lodged in the Central Prison. He came out of prison after a sessions court granted him bail and the Madras High Court set aside his detention under the Goondas Act. He was about to face trial in the case from Tuesday.

Under such circumstances, he allegedly murdered his mother Sarala on Monday at home in Kundrathur. A. Sekar, his father, expressed suspicion that his son was the murderer. “After coming out from prison, his behaviour was strange. My wife scolded him for coming home drunk frequently. He also demanded ₹20,000 from me for personal expenses and subsequently a gold ring went missing from the house,” his father had said.

On Monday, Sarala was found murdered with a blunt object, while Daswant was missing from home. Police said he robbed his mother’s gold

thaali and a pair of gold bangles, and the motorcycle was also missing from home. He had also switched off his mobile phone.

Anonymous tip-off

A senior police officer said, “He switched off his mobile immediately after the crime was committed. Initially we were clueless about his whereabouts except that his call record showed that he was last in Padi area and made thorough enquiries with his ex-prison mates in the city. Six teams were constituted to trace the accused. We adopted the conventional methods to crack down the suspect. An anonymous caller told us that he was spotted in an Omni bus beyond Padi.”

“We analysed the telephone numbers given by passengers. He gave a wrong number while booking a ticket on the bus. The sustained investigation disclosed that he was interested in horse racing. Both gave us vital clues to trace the accused,” said an investigating officer.

Police teams were sent to Bengaluru, Mysore and Mumbai to trace the accused and a team led by Kundrathur Inspector Charles scanned the area where Tamil speaking people were residing. Plainsclothes policemen were deployed for surveillance. He walked into the trap of police when he arrived to watch a race at Mahalaxmi Race Course. The team led by Mr. Charles caught him on Wednesday afternoon. He was brought to Chennai by air and is likely to be produced in the jurisdictional court on Thursday morning.