Exactly a week after Infosys employee 24-year-old Swathi was hacked to death at the Nungambakkam railway station, the Chennai police claim to have made a breakthrough in the case.
The police have arrested a man named P Ramkumar, who according to them had killed Swathi on June 24.
What we know about Ramkumar till now:
He is a 22-year-old engineer hailing from Tirunelveli.
He hails from the Meenakshipuram village in Tenkasi in Tirunelveli.
Ramkumar had studied in a private engineering college in Tirunelveli and then come to Chennai in search for a job. Unconfirmed reports say he was working in a textile shop in Chennai, but was searching for a better job.
He has been living in a mansion in Choolaimedu in Chennai for the last few months. Mansions are cheap paying guest accommodations. Choolaimedu was the area in which Swathi too was living.
(The mansion in which Ram Kumar was living)
While he was living in Sowrastra Nagar, Swathi’s house was diagonally opposite in Gangai Amman Koil street.
After Chennai police released an enhanced sketch of the suspect, the mansion owner or security guard reportedly identified him and informed the police.
Ramkumar had been missing from his room for a week.
Swathi’s mobile phone had been missing from the day of the murder and was last switched on near Choolaimedu. (Also close to the railway station).
Police tracked the mobile signal and figured out that both the mobile phones (Swathi’s and Ramkumar’s) had been switched on for sometime after the murder.
Police searched his room in Chennai and found some evidence, after which Nellai police were alerted.
When a police team headed by Tirunelveli SP Vikraman surrounded him in Tirunelveli, Ramkumar reportedly slit his throat with a sharp object.
He was taken to a hospital in Tenkasi and then moved to the government hospital in Tirunelveli. He has been kept at the ICU, and is believed to have at least 18 stitches in his throat.
His father Paramasivam and siblings too were also questioned by the police.
When Swathi’s father K Santhanagopalakrishnan was approached by the media, he said that the family had no idea about the arrest until the police informed them, after the accused slit his throat.
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