The Madras High Court Bench here has transferred the investigation into the mysterious death of a 24-year-old woman and her two children, whose bodies were found floating in a culvert on the Madurai-Dindigul Road in November, to the Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department (CB-CID).
Justice V. Periya Karuppiah ordered transfer of investigation following a criminal original petition filed by A. Saibunissa, maternal grandmother of the deceased children. She claimed that the Vadipatti police had not taken constructive steps to arrest three prime culprits who flew to Malaysia after murdering the trio due to previous enmity with her son-in-law.
The petitioner's counsel Veera Kathiravan said that his client's daughter A. Adila Banu of Ramanathapuram district had married a ration shop employee Muthusamy. A Dalit by birth, he later converted to Islam and renamed himself as Ahamad. The couple had two children, a boy and a girl aged seven and five. A few years later, her son-in-law took up a job in Malaysia.
After his departure, one of his former colleagues met the petitioner's daughter and grandchildren and took them in his car in the guise of getting them a free cooking gas cylinder.
A day later, the petitioner lodged a complaint with the Kenikarai police station in Ramanathapuram regarding the missing trio.
Two days thereafter, their bodies were found near Vadipatti in Madurai district.
Investigations revealed that the murder had been committed at the behest of an individual who was inimical against Ahamad for turning out to be a hostile witness in the murder case of the former's brother-in-law. The police also found out that three main accused had fled to Malaysia immediately after executing the murder with the help of hooligans who disposed of the dead bodies in the culvert.
“It is a gruesome murder in which… innocent children have been done to death due to alleged previous enmity between two families. In such circumstances, this court is very much convinced that the CB-CID would be the competent agency to continue the investigation and complete the same after taking the assistance of the Malaysian police to bring the culprits back to India,” Mr. Justice Periya Karuppiah said.
