The Kulathoor police have arrested four persons, including two brothers, for allegedly murdering a moneylender and burning the body in his car.
After witnessing a car burning in a secluded area on the Vaippaar – Pallaakulam road on Thursday evening, passers-by alerted the Soorangudi and Kulathoor police. When the Kulathoor police examined the completely gutted car, they found the charred body of a male inside. They also collected a gold chain from the body and a mobile phone near the car.
The police found that the car belonged to financier Nagajothi, 48, of Saayalkudi in Ramanathapuram district and the owner of the mobile phone recovered from the scene of crime was Michael Raj of Kannirajapuram near Saayalkudi. When the Kulathoor police contacted Saayalkudi police, the latter informed that they had picked-up Michael Raj for inquiry following a complaint from Nagajothi’s wife that her husband was missing since Thursday morning.
The Kulathoor police immediately brought Michael Raj to Kulathoor police station for inquiry. During inquiry, he reportedly told the police that he had murdered moneylender Nagajothi with the assistance of a few others.
Nagajothi used to hire driver Michael Raj to drive the car whenever he had to go to far-off places. When Michael Raj requested Nagajothi to give him a loan of ₹2 lakh for recovering the jewels he had pledged in a bank, the financier had given him the money. Michael Raj came to know about the huge volume of business being done by Nagajothi and he planned to extract money by threatening him with the assistance of his younger brother Kani, 26, Mari, 28 and Ganapathi Rajan, 28.
Michael Raj told Nagajothi that his Vilaathikulam-based relative had promised to lend him ₹2 lakh, which he would give to the financier to settle the loan. Nagajothi and Michael Raj left for Vilaathikulam in the car from Saayalkudi at around 8 a.m. on Thursday. When Kani, Mari and Ganapathi Rajan stopped the car midway, Michael Raj told Nagajothi that they were coming to Vilaathikulam to sign the loan documents as witnesses.
Even as the car was crossing Kumarasakkanapuram near Soorankudi, the four threatened Nagajothi to give them money. As he resisted, Nagajothi was strangulated to death and the body was kept in the trunk of the car.
They tried to find a suitable place for burying the body around Vilaathikulam, Pillaiyarnaththam and Thoothukudi. As they could not find the right spot, they decided to burn the body along with the car. Hence, two of them got down at Vilalathikulam and took a bus to Kannirajapuram and brought petrol and firewood in a mini cargo vehicle to the forest area in Pallaakulam around 5.30 p.m.
After keeping the body inside the car and spreading firewood on the body, they set fire to the vehicle. Since the fire alarm in the car began to beep, the four fled the spot in panic and Michael Raj’s mobile phone accidentally fell near the burning car.
“With the mobile phone that we recovered from the spot, we could identify the murderers and arrest them on Friday,” said L. Balaji Saravanan, Superintendent of Police, who visited the scene of crime.