CHENNAI: After a man was hacked to death at Avvai Nagar in Tiruvanmiyur on Wednesday night, family members of two of the suspects, including a six months’ pregnant wife of one of them, were kept in custody at the Tiruvanmiyur police station for nearly 24 hours. The relatives said the family members were detained to force the suspects to surrender.
Only on Thursday evening, after all three suspects were “caught” and they “confessed” to killing Dhanasekar, their family members were allowed to leave the police station. “A woman police personnel assured that she would try everything she could for the safety of the pregnant woman. But she lamented that a senior police officer in the station was not allowing her to help the pregnant woman. Only by 10 am on Thursday, they allowed us to give tablets and food to her and two elderly parents of other suspects in the case,” said a relative of T Raja, one of the suspects in the case, who has been arrested.
Soon after Dhanasekar was hacked to death around 10 pm on Wednesday, the policemen barged into the houses of suspects at Annai Sathya Nagar in Kallukuttai near Perungudi. The policemen allegedly threatened the family members to phone the absconding suspects and ask them to surrender to the police.
While the police arrested S Shankar on Wednesday night, two other persons suspected by the police in the case, T Raja and P Bharathi, were absconding. Police had taken Bharathi’s six months’ pregnant wife to the police station along with the elderly parents of the Raja on Wednesday night. “All three have been detained in the police station since last night. We were all made to wait at the temple mandapam outside the station. The policemen did not even talk to us and just ask us to get away from the spot as though we are untouchables,” said a relative of one of the families on Thursday morning.
Shankar’s younger brother Dinesh claimed that he was allowed by the police to go inside the police station so that he can “convince Shankar to confess to killing Dhanasekar or pay a heavy amount to police.” Only on Thursday evening, the family members were released by the police.
When Express contacted the Assistant Commissioner of Police A Subbarayan, who was supervising the investigations, he denied the charges. He acknowledged that the family members of suspects were taken for enquiry, but claimed that they were all allowed to go immediately.
Scribes ill-treated
When a group of presspersons, including Express reporter, visited the Tiruvanmiyur station on Thursday to collect details of the murder of Dhanasekar, Assistant Commissioner Subbarayan used filthy language and verbally abused them. Despite police station being a public office, he questioned why the reporters were entering the station “like dogs.” He threatened the reporters to leave the station immediately or he would use force on them.