Chennai police nab life convict 12 years after he jumped parole in murder case

CHENNAI: A life convict in a murder case, who jumped parole 12 years ago, and was living under a different identity in Nagapattinam district, was secured by a special team of the city police on Saturday.

E Kannan, along with three others, were arrested in 1999 by the St Thomas Mount police for a murder case. In 2007, a sessions court had sentenced Kannan and his associates to life.

In 2012, after he was granted parole, Kannan went off the police radar. “While availing parole, he had given a bogus address in Tirumangalam. He signed at the police station one day, and after that, he did not turn up,” a police officer said.

Subsequent police teams had searched for him, but Kannan could not be found. They conducted enquiries with his co-accused about his whereabouts, but there were no leads.

Recently, St Thomas Mount Police received a tip-off about Kannan being in touch with a distant relative, and after investigations, traced him to Velankanni. “He had changed his name to Kanagaraj and was living with his wife. He used to work as a painter and was doing the same job there,” a police official said.

Kannan was produced before a magistrate and remanded in judicial custody.