Breakthrough in Vijayam murder case, six arrested

Chennai, Sep 8 (UNI) The Tamil Nadu Crime Branch (CB-CID) police has achieved a breakthrough in the three-month-old murder case of Vijayan, kin of former Chief Minister M G Ramachandran, and made a startling disclosure that a policeman was involved in it.

Vijayan, husband of one of MGR's adopted daughters, was proceeding in his car to his house at suburban Ramavaram, when an unidentified gang, following him in a car, beat him to death in June.

After the local police remained clueless for few days, the case was transferred to the Crime branch CID police, which, after questioning nearly 200 people, zeroed in on the ''killers'' and arrested six people, who included Ms Banu, sister of Vijayan's wife and Karunakaran, a policeman in the city.

The police case was that Banu, who found Vijayan coming in the way of sharing the properties owned by MGR, had told Karunakaran that only if Vijayan was done to death, could she and others get the property and worked out a plan to eliminate Vijayan.

As part of the investigation, the police team tracked the mobile phones of all the relatives of MGR, when they found Banu was frequently receiving calls from Karunakaran, who demanded money from her.

Further interrogation revealed that Karunakaran, a policeman in the city and a distant relative of Banu, had hired a gang to murder Vijayan for a price of Rs five lakh.

Police said Karunakaran drove the car along with the gang members, when they murdered Vijayan on the night of June two in the city.

As per the plan, Karunakaran hit Vijayan's car, forcing him to come out of the vehicle, when the gang members, attacked him with iron rods and lethal weapons.

Vijayan died on the way to hospital, police said.

Based on the confession made by Karunakaran, police arrested the four gang members.

All the six were produced before a magistrate court and remanded to judicial custody, police added.

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