Four held in aged couple murder case

Erode (Tamil Nadu), May 19: (PTI) Four persons were arrested on Monday in connection with the murder of an aged couple in this district, a senior police officer said.

Speaking to reporters here, T Senthilkumar, Inspector General of Police, West Range, said Ramasamy aged 72 and his wife Bagiyam aged 63 of Uchimedu Megaraiyan garden, who were residing in their farmhouse in Sivagiri police station limits, were found murdered on May 2.

Their son Kavishankar, who is living in a different village, around 20 km away, tried to call their parents on May 1, but the phone calls were not answered. Intrigued by this, he called his relatives residing on neighbouring farms and asked them to go and check on his parents. They, May 2, found the couple dead with multiple injuries and the bodies decaying in the farmhouse, Senthilkumar said.

Later it was found that gold jewellery was missing from the farmhouse.

On getting information, police registered a case and more than ten police teams were formed to crack the case, IG added.

One of those teams arrested three history sheeters after verifying more than 200 CCTV camera footage. The arrested are: Aachiappan aged 48, Madeshwaran aged 52 and Ramesh 54 of Arachalure surroundings in Erode district and interrogated them. They admitted that they had murdered the aged couple, stolen the 10 sovereigns of jewels and had given the ornaments to Gnanasekaran, an Arachalure-based jeweller, who melted them and kept the metal with him, Senthilkumar said.

Gnanasekaran was also arrested, and all four were remanded to judicial custody, he added.

First three suspects also confessed to having murdered another three persons, in a different case, namely Deivasigamani aged 78, his wife Alamathal 74 and their son Senthilkumar, aged 44 of Semalaigounden Palayam in Tiruppur district and have stolen five and a half sovereigns of gold ornaments from them, the police officer said.

Sasi Mohan, Deputy Inspector General of Police and A Sujatha, Superintendent of Police, accompanied IG Senthil Kumar. PTI CORR ADB