Widow turns accomplice in murder of Chennai software engineer

The June 2 murder near Tindivanam of a city-based software engineer is becoming more complex. A 36-year-old widow, arrested in the city on Saturday, has unwittingly become an accomplice to the killing, the police say.

According to the police, C Parthasarathy, employee of a BPO call centre in Tidel Park, was kidnapped by a gang on June 2, taken to Tindivanam and strangled before the body was burnt and dumped amidst bushes near a toll gate in Olakkur near Tindivanam.

On Friday, the police arrested Parthasarathy’s father-in-law Narasimhan, an assistant engineer with Metrowater, and the assailants Dileep Kumar, Janakiraman and his brother Hemanth Ram.

Based on their confession, the police arrested Saluja of Villivakkam. She told the police that to help Narasimhan she hired the assailants to teach a lesson’ to Parthasarathy. “Saluja met Narasimhan when she went to get a Metrowater connection for her house in Villivakkam. They again met at a yoga centre in Villivakkam and began meeting often,” the police said, based on Saluja’s statement.

When Narasimhan didn’t come to the yoga class continuously for more than a week, Saluja contacted him and learnt about the sudden marriage of his daughter Saranya to a Parthasarathy, a software engineer. Narasimhan, Salayuja told the police, wanted to teach a lesson to Parthasarathy and initially only asked her to help threaten him. Later, he expressed a desire to eliminate Parthasarathy, Saluja, who works in a marriage information centre in the city, told the police.

Saluja’s late husband and the father of Dileep one of the assailants were colleagues in the ICF and she knew Dileep and his brother Janakiraman. First asked to threaten Parthasarathy, the two demanded Rs 5 lakh when told that they would have to eliminate him, the police said. The two then engaged their friend Hemanth Ram to help them, the police added.

“The trio closely followed Parthasarathy for many days before kidnapping him on June 2 and taking him in rented Tata Indica to Tindivinam where he was done to death,” a police officer said.

“We will take Dileep Kumar and Janakiraman into custody for questioning. We have to recover many valuables from them. We are also planning to stage a demonstartion of the murder which will be videographed. An identification parade will be conducted in the prison in front of a magistrate soon,” Villupuram superintendent of police Xavier Dhanraj told TOI.