Ramanathapuram
Five accused, who were arrested or surrendered in courts in connection with ‘Valantharavai double murder case’, have been detained under the Goondas Act.
Acting on the recommendations of Superintendent of Police Omprakash Meena, Collector S. Natarajan has passed two separate detention orders, after which the five accused were lodged in Madurai central prison.
While three accused — S Karthik (26), the main accused in the case, and his accomplices D. Muniasamy and D. Prakash were detained under the Goondas Act, a couple of days ago, two other accused – D. Babu and V. Sathiskumar were detained under the preventive act on Wednesday, police said.
Karthik has earned the dubious distinction of detained under Goondas Act for the fifth term – the maximum terms by any accused in the district, police said. He was facing as many as 36 cases, including murder, attempt to murder, robbery, dacoity and drug trafficking, police said.
The SP said files were being readied to detain four more accused in the case under the Goondas Act. “We will detain most of the accused in the case under the preventive act after studying their backgrounds,” the SP said.
The SP, who was reviewing the progress of investigation in the case on regular basis, said 17 of 21 accused, who were arraigned in the case, were in judicial custody after they were arrested by special teams or surrendered before courts.
Those at large included S. Dharma, brother of Karthik, who mastermind the gruesome murder of M. Boominathan (32) and R. Vijay (26) of Amman Koil at Valantharavai on the night of May 20in a gang rivalry. They were sleeping in front of a house in the open after a family function, when the accused hacked them to death.
Meanwhile one person was murdered at Therkoor near Valantharavai on Wednesday but police said the murder was not the fallout of the double murder. One Siva alias Sivakumar (22) was murdered by M. Vaitheeswaran following a family dispute after the deceased objected to love marriage, involving his niece and the accused, police said.
The deceased who was working as waiter in a hotel in Chennai, returned home only two days ago, police said. He was standing near a shop, when the accused who came from behind, slashed his throat, using a knife, police said.