CHENNAI: One of the eleven suspects in the Tamil Nadu BSP chief K Armstrong’s murder case was killed in a police encounter when he allegedly tried to attack the police and escape near Madhavaram on Sunday.
The man was identified as K Thiruvengadam (33) of Kundrathur, a history sheeter.
On Sunday morning, he was taken to a place near a lake in Madhavaram where the weapons used to attack and kill Armstrong were hidden. At the spot, where Thiruvengadam allegedly tried to attack a policeman and escape, he was shot and killed.
He was rushed to a nearby hospital where he was declared dead.
On July 5, Armstrong was hacked to death while he was standing outside his under construction house in Perambur. He was rushed to a private hospital on Greams Road, where he was declared dead. His body was then sent to a government hospital for postmortem. A few hours later, the city police arrested eight people including Thiruvengadam.
The others who were arrested are Ponnai V Balu (39), D Ramu (38), K S Thirumalai (45), D Selvaraj (48), G Arul (33) of, K Manivannan (25) and J Santosh (22). Three other men Gokul, Vijay and Sivasankar were arrested the next day. The city police said that Armstrong was killed in retaliation for the murder of a history sheeter Arcot Suresh near Foreshore Estate in 2023. One of the arrested suspects, Ponnai V Balu, is the younger brother of Suresh.
On July 11, the city police took the suspects under a five-day custody for questioning.