Double murder, gang on rampage terrify residents of Tambaram

CHENNAI: Three men murdered two history-sheeters travelling on a bike at Kadaperi in west Tambaram on Monday afternoon. The murder was allegedly a fallout of previous enmity, police said. The killings that happened in a residential locality around 11.45 am, hours after a gang ransacked a petrol pump in nearby Perungalathur, shocked locals.
The deceased were identified as S Pradeep Kumar, 30, of Arputham Nagar, Kadaperi, and his friend P Suresh, 29, of the same locality. Pradeep Kumar owned a laundry. Police said both of them were anti-socials and faced petty cases. Suresh was jailed under the Goondas Act and was released from prison recently.
On Sunday night, police filed an FIR against both of them, based on a complaint by the accused. On Monday morning, police said, Suresh went to Arputham Nagar on his two-wheeler and picked up Pradeep from his house. They were going to meet a friend. Suddently, three men on two motorbikes hit their bike head on. In the impact, Pradeep and Suresh fell. Before they could get up, the gang encircled, attacked them using sickles and escaped. The Tambaram police, who reached the spot, sent the bodies for postmortem to the Chromepet government hospital. Police said Suresh and Pradeep reportedly attacked one of the accused Manikandan’s father Ranganathan last week. The two groups had been fighting and issued life threats to each other. Manikandan lodged a complaint with the Tambaram police over the attack on his father.
Fearing reprisal, Suresh and Pradeep had machetes for protection. The rival group thought they were planning to eliminate them and hatched a plot to kill the duo. Manikandan with his relatives Boobalan and Ezhumalai came on the bike and killed them. The Tambaram police registered a case and launched a search.