DMK woman grilled in ex-Mayor’s murder

A special team formed to probe the case in which former Mayor of Tirunelveli Uma Maheswari was also a victim, grilled the DMK functionary in Madurai.

After detailed inquiries, the team came to know that the woman functionary was she was residing in her daughter’s house at Koodal Pudur in Madurai.

Police said the woman, who was known to the former mayor, expressed her wish to contest from Sankarankovil assembly constituency in Tirunelveli district. As Uma Maheswari promised to get a party ticket to contest the election, the Madurai functionary allegedly paid a huge sum to the former Mayor. But, Uma Maheswari could not get a party ticket and this disappointed the woman.

The former Mayor somehow convinced the woman promising that she would get a party ticket for the Madurai functionary to contest from Tenkasi in the Lok Sabha election. This time too, Uma Maheswari could not keep her promise leaving the Madurai in utter frustration.

When the woman functionary approached the former Mayor and demanded her money back, Uma Maheswari dodged and delayed repayment.

Frustrated over this, the woman allegedly hatched a murder plot and executed it with hired killers, sources said.

However, D. Mahesh Kumar, Deputy Commissioner of Police, Tirunelveli City (Crime and Traffic), when contacted, denied any such investigation in Madurai.

During the inspection of the crime scene, a team of forensic experts lifted two or three fingerprints and efforts were underway to find whether they match with any other accused or convicts available in police records.

With CCTV footage being a vital clue as of now, the team is checking every clip to accused. The footage showed some persons moving in the locality minutes after the murder. However, they look like strangers, suspected to be from other states, to the region.