By Umaima Shafiq
A lawyer, who is the prime accused in the September 2013 murder of famed neurosurgeon Dr D Subbaiah, surrendered at a magistrate court at Saidapet in Chennai last week.
Subbaiah was attacked by three henchmen hired by his Tirunelveli-based relative Dr James Sathish Kumar outside the Billroth Hospital in Chennai. The attack was recorded on the building’s surveillance camera and police arrested nearly all the suspects.
The murder was the backlash of a dispute over some family property in Kanyakumari worth Rs120mn.
However, B Williams, the key suspect who masterminded the attack including hiring the three hit men, remained elusive. Police have also arrested a man who sheltered Williams during his hiding.
Maid’s body found in lake;boyfriend held
A 26-year-old man was arrested for murdering and dumping his girlfriend’s body into the Putheri lake at Wallajabad in suburban Chennai last week.
Renuka, a maid working at a Chennai household, had an affair with a car driver, Chandrasekhar. However when he refused to marry her, she began blackmailing him for money. Angered by this, he took her to the lake on November 29, strangulated her and threw her body into the water.
The body was recovered on December 5 and identified by her family who had filed a missing person complaint. Police tracked Chandrasekhar from Renuka’s cell record list and a pawnbroker’s complaint with whom he had tried to pledge her jewels.
Film director and wife file for divorce
Award winning film director Priyadarshan and his wife Lissy last week filed for divorce after nearly 24 years of marriage.
The couple married in 1990 and have two children. Priyadarshan has directed and produced nearly 80 films in Malayalam, Tamil and Hindi. His film Kanchivaram (2007) that depicted the woes of silk weavers won him a national award, while he was honoured with the Padma Shri award in 2012 for his contribution to cinema.
Lissy was a leading heroine in the 1980s but retired after marriage.
45 injured as bus, lorry collide
At least 45 people including the drivers of a bus and lorry were injured when their vehicles collided at Senkottai in southern Tirunelveli district near the Tamil Nadu/Kerala border last week.
The accident occurred on a hilly track and traffic was disrupted for several hours. The injured were rushed to hospitals in Tiruvananthapuram and nearby Puzhanur towns.
In another incident, a baby and two middle-aged women died in a car accident near Dharmapuri. The Palakkad-bound car was driven by the baby’s father Santhosh, a software professional, who lost control and hit a road median while crossing a flyover. The impact threw the car 10ft below the flyover killing his son and aunts instantly. Santhosh and his wife are in hospital.
Robber abandons 38kg of gold
At least 38kg of gold worth Rs80mn was seized from a robber who abandoned the loot on seeing policemen at Keeranur town in Pudukottai district about 45km from the temple city of Tiruchi last week.
Police stopped a man carrying a big rucksack that looked like a body bag at dawn outside a bank on Kulathur road. The robber dropped the bag and escaped through a railway toll gate nearby. Later police found that he had entered the bank through a rear window that was not covered by surveillance cameras.
