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6 held in murder case of DMK functionary hacked in public in Chennai
Six men have been held in connection with the murder of a DMK functionary, Sampath Kumar, who was brutally hacked in full public view in Chennai on Wednesday night, officials said
Six men have been held in connection with the murder of a DMK functionary, Sampath Kumar, who was brutally hacked in full public view in Chennai on Wednesday night, officials said.
The CCTV footage of the crime from around 9.15 pm at one of the busiest localities in Chennai’s Anna Nagar showed two men on a bike colliding with Kumar and attacking him with machetes. What’s even more bizarre is that almost immediately more men joined and attacked Kumar multiple times while he was lying motionless on the arterial road even as cars and two wheelers continued to pass them in the two-way road. Kumar was lying in a pool of blood and eventually a passerby informed the police. The video of the attack went viral on Friday.
According to police officials, the Anna Nagar police reached the scene and found Kumar dead. His body was sent for postmortem. A case was registered based on a complaint by Kumar’s son, Gopinath.
The 51-year-old DMK functionary was involved in drinking water delivery business. Explaining the motive of the crime from preliminary enquiries, police said that Kumar had given a tip off to police about a criminal named Lenin in his locality. Lenin reportedly often took refuge in Kumar’s neighbour Vinayagam’s house. The police said that this had driven Vinayagam to plan Kumar’s murder with his wife.
City police said that they arrested the couple, Vinayagam (47) and Karpagam (41), adding that four people have surrendered in the case- Hari Kumar (21), Sridharan (25), Mohanavel (21) and Naveen Kumar (24). The police have seized weapons including two machetes from them. The police are also on the lookout for Lenin.
