CHENNAI: For five years, the police couldn’t catch Ravi, despite coming close to him at least twice. In 2015, Ravi, who was separated from his wife, allegedly murdered his 13-year-old daughter and 12-year-old son who were living with him. The reason for the crime is still unknown. Recently, Ravi had come to Chennai to meet a friend. The police got the information and nabbed him from a lodge the city.
Ravi, then a practising lawyer at the Poonamallee Special Court, was staying in an apartment at TNHB housing quarters in MMDA colony near Maduravoyal. On June 3, 2015, residents complained of foul smell coming from the house. When the police broke open into the house, they found the children dead.
A police officer who was investigating the case five years ago, said, “Ravi had meticulously planned the murder. He had slit the throat of his daughter and strangulated his son.
After laying them on the bed, he had switched on the air-conditioner and television to avoid suspicion. He also opened the gas cylinder in the kitchen and lit a small candle under the bed. To make the fire erase all evidences, he spread clothes around the house dipped in petrol” But fortunately, the candle had blown out and most of the gas had escaped through the exhaust fan, said the police.
Mageshwari had told the police that Ravi behaved like an abnormal person while the residents complained that Ravi picked up fight with everyone in the neighbourhood and stopped sending the children to school. Ravi was last seen on May 28 that year, as he was leaving the apartment. He fled to Odisha and then to Delhi after committing the crime.