Tiruchy cops nab gang with guns, country bombs; foil murder plan

TIRUCHY: A special team of police from Tiruchy arrested a gang of 14 rowdies who were planning a brutal murder in the district and seized weapons including two rifles on Thursday late hours.

According to police, ‘Kumili’ P Rajkumar from Theni district, the founder of Devendra Kula Makkal Iyakkam, who was in prison for two years for a brutal murder in Chennai in 2019, came out on bail and had reportedly continued indulging in anti-social activities along with a few of his associates. There are around five murder cases and more than 20 cases pending against Rajkumar across the state, the police said.

Against such a backdrop, the police received information that Rajkumar along with his aides had planned a brutal murder on October 30 during Thevar Jayanthi. Hence, the police accelerated the vehicle check across the state. One such special team of police from Tiruchy was inspecting vehicles at the Pettavaithalai area during the wee hours of October 16 and a car coming in a high speed attempted to escape but collided with the barricade erected by the police. On checking the car, the police found Rajkumar along with his associates in the car. They secured Rajkumar and seized lethal weapons including two country rifles.

Soon the special team passed on the information to the Tiruchy SP V Varun Kumar who directed the police to file a case and later they were lodged in the prison.

Meanwhile, based on the information shared by Rajkumar, the police continued the search operation and arrested M Balu alias Balasubramani (45), a resident from Kulithalai in Karur, a close associate of Rajkumar and the police seized around as many as 25 country crackers from him. In the meantime, the Samayapuram police apprehended E Alex, V Arun, R Ramu, and R Lakshmanan from Mahalikudi, N Venkatachalapathy, N Ganesan alias ‘Kadalai’ Ganesan, N Vinayagamoorthy, and N Valli Arunan from V Thuraiyur, and D Karthik from Marud