Monday, January 2, 2012

Jan 2, 2012: Intruder strangles sleeping woman as sister looks on


CHENNAI: Nungambakkam residents woke up to the New Year with a shock as a 52-year-old woman was found dead at her home in the residential Kamdar Nagar. Police said 20 sovereigns of gold belonging to G Aruna Seethalakshmi, the victim, was missing.

Seethalakshmy was sleeping with her sister R Prabhavathy (54), who had come to celebrate the New Year. Prabhavathy, who works with Punjab National Bank in Puducherry, told police that she woke up to the cries of her sister, who was sleeping next to her, at 5.15am. Prabhavathy turned towards her sister and was shocked to see her being strangled by a stranger. Fearing for her life, Prabhavathy kept silent and pretended as if she was asleep, police said.

Once the assailant moved out of the room after taking the gold ornaments Seethalakshmi was wearing, Prabhavathy cried out. By the time the neighbours gathered and called police, Seethalakshmi was dead. Police said the assailant broke into the house after removing the plywood that covered the wall from where an air-conditioner was removed for repair.

Police brought sniffer dog Seer which ran till Mahalingapuram the bus terminus and stopped.

Forensic experts lifted fingerprints from the house. Joint commissioner of police (west zone) K Shankar, Triplicane deputy commissioner of police S Baskaran and Nungambakkam assistant commissioner of police Saravanan visited the murder scene. Nungambakkam police have registered a murder case.

Police are trying to make a sketch of the assailant based on the description given by Prabhavathy. Police suspect that the assailant would have watched Seethalakshmi for a while before committing the crime. "The assailant wouldn't have expected her sister there. Probably he didn't see Prabhavathy on the same bed under a blanket," a police officer said. Their father Ram Mohan was a captain in the Army. Joint commissioner of police K Shankar said police teams were confident of nabbing the suspect by Monday night. "We have some clues," he said.

A similar incident was reported on May 10, 2011, from Kumaran Nagar. Three days before the Assembly elections, two sisters were found murdered in their house in Kumaran Nagar. The case remains unsolved.

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