Chennai: The missing case of a 23-year-old autorickshaw driver was solved on Wednesday with the arrest of five persons who confessed to have murdered him and dumped his body in a waterway near Perambur.
The arrested were identified as Sivanandam (25) of Kosapet, Jasper (27) of Purasawalkam, Vijay (20) of Kosapet, Johnson (45) of Perambur and Dinesh (20) of Choolai.
The prime suspect Ganesh who masterminded the murder is yet to be traced.
The missing man, Praveen Kumar (23), was a resident of Kaviyarasu Kannadasan Nagar X street.
He married his girlfriend Shabhana (21), of Purasaiwakkam, and had been living with for 5 months. Preliminary investigations revealed Sivanandam who introduced himself as an agent of a private firm supplying free SIM cards and befriended the deceased on the instructions of Ganesh. In course of time, Sivanandam introduced Praveen to Ganesh who was keen on eliminating him so as to get close to Shabhana.
On January 10, Sivanandam lured Praveen out of his house offering a used autorickshaw, which the latter was looking to buy. He took Praveen to Ganesh’s courier firm where the rest of the gang joined for a binge session.
After Praveen got drunk, the gang hacked him to death. They packed the body in a cardboard carton and later dumped it in Otteri Nula. The couple, after marriage, had moved to Kodungaiyur. Shabhana, in her complaint, stated that Ganesh had been trying to win her over though she was married and that she was only committed to Praveen. According to her, Ganesh, had first expressed his love for her two years ago when she was already in a relationship with Praveen.
“She claims she never approved Ganesh who began making advances after she got married to Praveen. We are examining whether her claims are genuine. We expect to get the complete story soon after we get to Ganesh,” said a police official privy to the investigation.
Police said Jasper is a college dropout and had pursued his B.Sc. computer science course at a private college in the city and is employed by Ganesh. The rest were friends of Ganesh and who helped him in his business as well.
