Special police teams to crack Minjur murders

The Tiruvallur district police have formed three special teams to crack two separate murders that happened near Minjur.

In both cases,  the bodies of the victims were burnt indicating attempts to disfigure them to destroy their identity.   On July 10, when some residents were passing by the railway track close to Anupampattu near Minjur around 6 am, they were distracted by a whiff of stench, which seemed to emanate from a graveyard close to the track. When they tried to locate the source of the foul smell, they were shocked to see the charred, naked body of a man near the tracks.

Soon, a team of policemen arrived at the spot. The deceased was found to be in his early 30s. His clothes were strewn around a little away suggesting that he might have been disrobed before being killed.

The police, however, could not identify the man as they could not find anything that could offer clues to find his name or residential address. His body was sent to the Government Stanley Hospital for post-mortem.

Police, who began investigations, suspected that the man could have been abducted to the crime spot near Minjur and set him on fire after dousing kerosene on him. Since a foul smell was emanating from the body, police said he could have been killed at least two days before his body was recovered. Investigations were on to ascertain if the murder was due to previous enmity or a love affair, police said.

This is the second such incident reported in Minjur.

In May, a similar case was reported when the charred remains of a man, estimated to be in his 20s, with the eyes gouged out, was found near the bund of a lake at Naalur near Minjur, police sources said.

Subsequently, he was identified as a native of Thirumangalam in Madurai, working at a private company in Chennai. The special teams are now probing the motive behind the murder.

Even before the law could catch up with the criminals in the first case, another murder, yet again in the same locality, has the residents worried. Police officials, however, said that the investigations are happening at a quick pace and assured that there was no need to worry.