Theft accused confesses to serial murders

Kancheepuram, May 14 (UNI) In an incident reminiscent of the sensational Auto Shankar Case, a decade ago, in which the accused was hanged to death for murdering several persons, an habitual thief murdered five of his gang members and buried their bodies in separate places.

This spine-chilling and cold-blooded killings came to light after the person arrested in connection with a theft case confessed to the crime today, police said.

Dev alias Devraj said he and his associates committed the henious crimes following a dispute over sharing booty and from the fear they would inform the police about him.

Dev and his associates Balaji, Sukvinder, Murugan, Ramu, Dhanasekar, Manikandan, Sankar, Kumar, Mohan and Jeeva hacked to death Veera (18), Dharani Kumar (25), Manjunathan (25), Hari (18) and Kumar (23) between 2006 and 2007 and buried the bodies in Lala Thottam and Pilliarpalayem here.

Though the police had been investigating the case for a long time, they achieved the breakthrough only with Dev's arrest.

Following the confession, the bodies were exhumed and sent for post-mortem.

UNI XR GM RL RAI2039