Palladam murder accused tries to escape, breaks leg

Tirupur: A day after the Palladam police nabbed an accused in the gruesome murder of four members of a family, he broke his leg on Tuesday trying to escape while being taken to recover the weapons used for the crime.On Sunday night, police had detained C Chellamuthu, 24, of Manaparai in Trichy district, in connection with the case. He was later arrested. “Today (Tuesday), we took him to an overhead water tank at Thottampatti, where they had hidden the murder weapons. While climbing the ladder to the tank, he jumped off it to escape. His right leg was fractured in the incident,” a police officer said.Chellamuthu was immediately rushed to the Palladam government hospital and later shifted to the Coimbatore Medical College and Hospital. Armed reserve police personnel have been deployed at the hospital to closely monitor him. Meanwhile, rumours had it that police had arrested one more accused in the case near Trichy.The officer said they were expecting the prime accused in the case, A Venkatesh, 27, of North Ariyanayakipuram in Tirunelveli district, who hacked the four with sickles, to surrender before a judicial magistrate in other districts. “We have deployed cops in plain clothes at various courts across the state to nab him before he surrenders before court.”Tirupur district superintendent of police Saminathan told the media five special teams were trying to trace the whereabouts of Venkatesh and the remaining accused, V Vishal, 20 of Theni district. On Tuesday afternoon, kith and kin of P Mohanraj, 49, his mother P Pushpavathi, 67, aunt S Rathinam, 60, and cousin S Senthil Kumar, 47, who were hacked to death, agreed to receive the bodies. The postmortem was completed on Monday.The family members and the villagers took out a procession with the bodies from the government hospital to their residence. After paying homage to the dead, the bodies were buried in the evening. Sivakumar, a relative of the deceased, said police promised to arrest the remaining two accused in the case soon. “That’s why we agreed to receive the bodies,” he said. The state government has offered to provide government jobs to the family members of the deceased.