A week after Chennai techie's murder, police releases new photo of suspect
Chennai: A week after a 24-year-old woman IT professional was hacked to death at a railway station in Chennai, police on Thursday released a new photo of the suspect.
The photo gives a front view of the suspect, a young man wearing a blue shirt and black pants, carrying a backpack. No further details were made available.
On Sunday, police had CCTV footage of the suspect, showing him crossing the tracks and jumping outside the railway station premises. The footage was acquired from a nearby house.
Swathi, employed with IT major Infosys, was allegedly hacked to death by an unidentified man on a platform in the busy Nugambakkam railway station on Friday. She was waiting to board a train on her way to office around 6:30 am when she was murdered. No arrest has been made so far.
The Madras High Court had also come down on the state government, warning it of suo motu intervention if there was any slackness in the probe. The probe, originally done by the Government Railway Police, was later shifted to the city police who have now formed eight special teams to crack the murder.
Meanwhile, various probe teams of the Chennai police have been conducting door-to-door enquiries since Tuesday night in Choolaimedu and Paranoor showing CCTV images of the suspect.
The weapon believed to have been used in the murder, a sickle, had been recovered last week from the railway track near the station premises, police said.
Swathi's friend and Infosys colleague who had stayed with her on the nights of June 9 and 10 confirmed that it was a stalker who killed her. She told police that she saw a man following them on June 10 and 11 morning when they walked to the Nungambakkam railway station from Swathi's home. Her friend further said the CCTV image matches with that of the man who followed them on those two days.
The probe teams had already come to believe the killer was a stalker, about whom she had told to her father and friends. Her father had not noticed the stalker though he had been dropping her at the station regularly in the last few weeks. The suspect had even stalked her right up to her Infosys office some days, police sources said. Cops have got in touch with a train passenger who had revealed that the suspect used to board a general coach next to the women's compartment.
