TIRUNELVELI: A theft accused from Nanguneri, who was on the run for 18 years and had become a self-styled godman in Tiruvannamalai, was arrested by a special team formed by V Prassanna Kumar, ASP, Nanguneri division, on Saturday.
The 41-year-old accused, P Ramaiah, was a resident of Vadukachimathil near Nanguneri.
“In 2006, he entered the Primary Agricultural Credit Society office in Dohnavur using a duplicate key and stole Rs 2,959. The Eruvadi police arrested him and sent him to judicial remand. In a few weeks, Ramaiah was released on bail, and he fled.
As a decade-long search for him across the state yielded no results, the Vijayanarayanam police closed one of the cases against him,” sources said. The police recently received a tip-off that some of Ramaiah’s relatives had seen him in Tiruvannamalai.
“A police team reached Tiruvannamalai to trace Ramaiah. In disguise, the policemen slept on platforms and found that Ramaiah, who did not have a phone, had become a ‘mouna samiyar’ (a godman who took a vow of silence),” sources said.
After confirming his identity, they caught Ramaiah and brought him to Eruvadi, and produced him before a judicial magistrate. The cases against him have been reopened.