A 78-year-old man, reported missing from his home at Valasaravakkam, was murdered by his son, who took the body all the way to Kaveripakkam in Ranipet district and buried it in a plot that he hoped to buy, the police said.
T. Kumaresan, 78, retired from a Central government establishment and was living in a residential building belonging to him at Thandavamoorthy Nagar, Arcot Road. His wife passed away in 2019. The couple had three daughters and a son. One of his daughters, Kanchana Mala, 55, has been living in the same building on the second floor after the demise of her husband, while his son Gunasekaran, 50, has been staying with his family on the first floor.
Kanchana Mala visited her in-laws at Mandaveli last Sunday and returned home on Thursday. As the house was locked and her father’s mobile phone was unreachable, she called up her brother Gunasekaran. He claimed that he did not know his father’s whereabouts and joined her in searching for him at Vadapalani and Valasaravakkam.
After a while, Gunasekeran went missing and his mobile phone was turned off. Kanchana Mala became suspicious. With the assistance of relatives, she broke open the door of the house from where a bad odour emanated and blood stains were found on the floor.
Valasaravakkam police officers reached the spot following her alert. Forensic experts collected samples and a sniffer dog was deployed.
The interrogation with Gunasekaran's wife Vasanthi revealed that he had gone to meet a friend, Venkatesan, at Kaveripakkam on Wednesday morning to look for a piece of land to set up a unit to sell tiles. The next day, Gunasekaran drove a mini-van with a closed drum and a shovel to the plot that he proposed to buy. He asked his friend to leave, saying he had some work to do on the ground.
With the help of a local worker, a pit was dug. He buried the body, which was in pieces, in the pit and returned to the city. He allegedly told a tenant that he had performed a special pooja to ward off evil and for the improvement of his business and was carrying the materials in the van to be buried in the plot he would buy soon, police sources said.
On his return from Kaveripakkam, he pretended to be searching for his father and then escaped. He and his father had a dispute over the sharing of property with his sister, and that might have been the reason for the extreme act, said the police.
Further investigation is on to trace the accused and confirm the motive.
