TIRUVANNAMALAI: Police are on the lookout for a university professor and a government school teacher for allegedly plotting and executing the murder of a clerk of Karapattu panchayat on May 19, making it appear as an accident.
Ravi, a Tamil professor of Annamalai University, and his brother Muthu, a government elementary teacher, hatched the plot to murder Arunachalam, police said. The three were residents of Karapattu village and were also partners of a private matriculation school in Chengam, said the police.
Ravi harboured enmity after Arunachalam started to support his relative Manoharan, who was in-charge of the school administration. Ravi waited for an opportunity to eliminate him.
Arunachalam was hit and run by a car around 4.30 pm on May 19 near Nagapadi village. The incident had taken place when he was returning home. A youth, who was later identified as Karthick of Chidambaram, had driven the car and hit him and tried to speed away. After one of the car tyres got punctured, he took to his heels. He was caught and thrashed by the villagers. Though he mana-ged to escape, he dropped his phone in the melee.
The police initially thought it was a hit-and -run case but the family members of the victim suspected that it was planned murder. The police collected the call logs from Karthick’s phone. They found that numerous telephone calls had been exchanged between him and Ravi before the incident. On interrogation, Karthick confessed to the crime. He told that Ravi persuaded him to commit the crime.