CHENNAI: A 25-year-old history-sheeter was hacked to death by a gang in broad daylight at Indira Nagar in Adyar on Tuesday. The incident took place when the deceased, V Maithreyan of Mylapore, was returning from the police station after signing the register as required by his bail conditions.
The Adyar police, who have registered a case and detained three youths — Jeevanandham (20), Surya (19) and Vignesh (19) — said the gang and the victim had previous enmity.
Maithreyan, who recently moved to Thiruvanmiyur, was a C-category history-sheeter with a few cases pending against him and was out on bail last week in one of cases. Under the bail conditions, he had to sign the register at the Mylapore police station every day.
According to the police, last November, Jeeva and his gang murdered Maithreyan’s friend Susai. The gang found that Maithreyan was plotting revenge and this led to the murder.
Sources said Maithreyan had signed the register around 11 am on Tuesday and was returning home in an autorickshaw when the gang surrounded him. He tried to escape, but the men chased him down and hacked him to death.
Passersby who witnessed the attack alerted the police. Maithreyan was taken to a private hospital in Taramani, where he was declared dead, and the body was later sent to Government Royapettah Hospital for postmortem.
His family members and relatives gathered outside the hospital and staged a protest, alleging that the police had not shown them the body. The police explained that the delay was due to the formalities of shifting the body from the private hospital, after which the relatives went back inside.
The police and a forensic team inspected the crime scene, and the CCTV footage helped them identify the three men, who were then detained. The gang had also posted a video of the attack on social media, and took it down only after the police told them to.
“The gang and Maithreyan had issues previously, which led to the murder,” a senior police officer said. The detained men were being questioned and would be remanded after inquiry, the police added.