While no concrete leads have been obtained yet in Tuesday’s murder of former Tirunelveli Mayor Uma Maheshwari , her husband and maid, the city police are probing if the crime was the fallout of a dispute over a reneged promise to get a DMK functionary a ticket to contest in the general election.
Initially, police believed the triple murder could have been committed for monetary gain. Now, they have begun probing other angles too, with the ‘party ticket’ and property dispute being among them.
The investigation has apparently thrown up a financial transaction between Maheshwari’s slain husband Murugasankaran and a person from Sankarankoil.
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“The Sankarankoil-based man had reportedly given a hefty sum to Murugasankaran to either get a post in the DMK or a ticket to contest the polls. As Murugasankaran neither honoured the deal nor returned the money, he could have been murdered, we suspect,” a police officer in Tirunelveli said.
Contract killers?
With police retrieving footage from CCTV cameras installed at an eatery near the crime scene and a place of worship, they suspect that contract killers could have been hired to carry out the murders.
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Meanwhile, DMK president M.K. Stalin announced ₹1 lakh as solatium to the family of Mariammal, the maid who was killed. Palayamkottai DMK MLA T.P.M. Mohideen Khan and senior party leaders handed over the sum to her children around noon.
Mariammal’s daughters have been left in the care of their grandparents.
Tirunelveli Collector Shilpa Prabhakar Satish has initiated steps to ensure their education and also offered assistance to help them complete construction of a house.