More arrests made as net widens in the murder of BSP leader Armstrong

Chennai Police uncover conspiracy to murder BSP leader, arrest 15, including DMK, AIADMK, TMC members, search for BJP functionary.

The Greater Chennai Police have unearthed a wider network involved in hatching the conspiracy to murder BSP leader K. Armstrong. At least 15 persons, including functionaries of the DMK, the AIADMK, and the Tamil Maanila Congress (TMC), were arrested. A search has been launched for a BJP functionary.

Immediately after Armstrong was murdered on July 5, the police arrested 11 suspects, including Ponnai Balu, K. Thiruvengadam (since killed in an encounter), and Arul, an advocate, at Poonamallee. They were remanded in judicial custody. Last Thursday, the police produced the 11 suspects before a judicial magistrate through videoconference from the prison instead of taking them to the court, apprehending a threat to their lives.

When the suspects were under interrogation, the police took Thiruvengadam in a government vehicle to a house at Manali last Sunday to recover the weapons used in the murder. He fled after getting down the vehicle under the pretext of attending to the call of nature near Retteri. When the police surrounded Thiruvengadam, who was holed up at a place called Vegetarian village in the Puzhal police station limits, he fired at the police with an unlicensed weapon. An inspector returned fire with his service revolver in self-defence and killed him.

Thiruvengadam was also one of the accused in the 2015 murder of Thennarasu, alias Thenna, the Tiruvallur district president of the BSP, on Thamaraipakkam Koot Road near Periyapalayam.

Startling revelations emerged from the interrogation of the 11 suspects, who are lodged at the Poonamallee sub-jail. Police sources said that two gangs of rowdies came together and planned for more than a month to kill Armstrong. The police also scrutinised their call records and bank transactions and unearthed huge transactions of money.

The police on Wednesday arrested three more suspects: Malarkodi, 49, an AIADMK functionary and advocate from Triplicane; Praveen, alias Hariharan, 27, a TMC functionary from Old Washermenpet; and Sathish Kumar, 28, of Thirunindravur, the son of a DMK functionary. Three cars were seized from them, the sources said.

Malarkodi’s husband ‘Border Thottam’ Sekar, an AIADMK stage singer, was murdered by a gang in 1997. An attempt was made on her life in 2019. Her son Alaguraja murdered Mylai Sivakumar in revenge. Malarkodi was hostile to Armstrong due to some incidents, the sources said.