Deal with firm that defrauded public of Rs 2.5K crore led to killing of Arcot Suresh and Armstrong?

CHENNAI: Though gangster Arcot Suresh and BSP's Tamil Nadu unit chief K Armstrong were considered arch rivals when it came to their field of operations, read extortion and kangaroo courts, the two had one thing in common and that led to the killing of both.

If sources are to be believed, an infamous gold deposit/trading firm which failed to return 2.5K crore rupees to its depositors had paid both men lakhs of rupees for their help in reining in heavy-weight complainants.

The two were at each other's throats after they came to know that the other had possibly encroached on their income-generating area.

One of the senior executives of the trading firm, which was accused of even heavily paying Economic Offences Wing investigators, had initially approached Arcot Suresh to handle the messy situation and paid him for it. When Armstrong found out, he called up the senior executive and asked for 'his share', after which he was paid generously, too. This had then obviously irked Arcot Suresh and since then, the two were at loggerheads.

Though the police did not officially state Armstrong's involvement in Suresh's murder in August last year, the gangster's accomplices knew that the hit was ordered by Armstrong. So, they retaliated, sources said on Saturday.

The 52-year-old Bahujan Samaj Party Tamil Nadu president was hacked to death by a six-member bike-borne gang near his house in Perambur on Friday.

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