CHENNAI: The Sholavaram police arrested a 44-year-old history-sheeter on charges of murdering his friend during a drunken quarrel and dumping the body along the Minjur-Vandalur Outer Ring Road (ORR) near Sholavaram to make it appear as a road accident.
The accused was identified as Senthilkumar (44) of Vyasarpadi. Police are searching for another suspect, Vignesh (39). All of them worked as auto-rickshaw drivers.
The crime came to light on Friday night when passers-by noticed a two-wheeler lying abandoned on the ORR service lane at Marambedu in Tiruvallur. They also found a man lying unconscious in a roadside ditch and alerted the police and 108 ambulance service.
Ambulance personnel declared the man dead. As the body, clad only in a shirt and innerwear, bore minor abrasions on the forehead and elsewhere, police initially suspected a road accident and registered a case of suspicious death. The body was sent to Stanley Government Hospital for postmortem.
Police later identified the deceased as Manikandan (29) of Vyasarpadi, who had several criminal cases pending against him. The postmortem conducted on Saturday revealed internal injuries and confirmed that Manikandan had been assaulted to death, following which the police altered the case to murder.