A Choice Of Life And Death

A choice of life and death
Published Date: 6/5/2007  -  (NIE)

T S SEKARAN & A SELVARAJ

Chennai, May 29: Thirty-year-old Rubesh Kumar, a video cameraman, meets with an accident on Kamaraj Salai and sustains head injuries. He dies in hospital on June 3. He was not wearing a helmet.

~ June 2: Venkat (35) of West Mambalam survives an accident near Nerkundram with minor injuries. He was wearing a helmet. ~ June 3: Babu escapes with minor injuries after an accident involving his motorcycle and a bus. He was wearing a helmet. But his wife Ammu alias Balasundari, riding pillion, dies. She was not wearing a helmet.

~ June 3: A two-wheeler hits a road median near Vallavur Kottam. Meenakshisundaram (28) a software professional, the bike rider, hits his head on the road, and dies on the spot. He was not wearing a helmet. His co-rider who was wearing one, survives.

Chennai, June 4: In all these cases, the helmet proved to be the difference between life and death.

‘‘If only Rubesh had been wearing a helmet, his three-year-old child would still have had its father,’’ observed the doctor who had attended on him in a city hospital. It was on Saturday morning, a day after the compulsory helmet rule came into force, that the Chief Minister directed the police not to implement it ‘‘very vigorously.’’

This was a signal enough for the police not to act, and within hours of the announcement, several two-wheeler riders could be seen on the city roads without helmets.

These reporters were witnesses to twowheeler riders whizzing past police patrol vehicles and even RTO offices blissfully without helmets, with no fear of penal action. With the government now ‘clarifying’ that wearing of helmets by women and children riding pillion is optional, top police officials have been wringing their hands.

‘‘We really don’t know what to do. There is no clear course of action. Are we to start booking those who don’t wear helmets, or leave it to their good senses?’’ wondered a senior officer in obvious despair.

Worse still, even policemen, who were the first to fall in line much before the helmet law became mandatory, have stopped using helmets, he said.

Four murders: No clue since 1993

Four murders: No clue even after 14 yrs
Published Date: 6/25/2007  -  (NIE)

A SELVARAJ

Chennai, June 24: None of their relatives or friends is now here to recall the ghastly murder of a typewriting institute owner and his family at Aminjikarai on a rainy October night in 1993.


Perumal, who ran the institute, was staying in a portion of the same building on Poonamallee High Road with his wife Devika and two children aged 11 and 8. He was an instructor at a private typewriting institute, before starting a new one at Aminjikarai.

The murder came to light when the milkman found the family hacked to death at their house, the next morning. Rumours that the eyes of the children were plucked out, followed.

Even after 14 years of investigation, the mystery behind the murders is yet to be unravelled. Worse, the police station concerned does not even have the complete records of the case.

Officers, who probed the case, claimed that fingerprints, if any, were not trace able because it was raining on the night of the murder.

An officer, who is now an Assistant Commissioner, said that the investigation hit a road block as the probe team was not able to obtain any clue.

Brushing aside rumours of a possible organ trade, he said that the children had sustained injuries on their eyes due to a heavy blow on the back of their head.

According to him, ‘‘The assailants entered the house to rob, but were noticed and confronted by the couple.

The robbers then hit them with iron rods to stop them from raising an alarm.'' A highly-placed source in the Commissionerate said, ‘‘Weeks before the murder, the victim's students witnessed a clash between Perumal and a group of persons from his native village near Vandavasi.''

However, another senior police officer said, ‘‘Initial inquiries revealed that the murders were not committed for gain, but due to previous enmity with some local politicians.

As an investigating officer, I had some doubts regarding the case which could not be clarified till the end of my period.'' He added that there was tremendous pressure from the local politicians to go slow in the investigation.

And there is not even a single tenant in the building or a neighbour who knows about the murder.

All that they know is based on hearsay.

Even the relatives of the murder victims had returned to their native places after the incident.

The Aminjikarai police station does not even have the case record.

Said a middle-level police officer: ‘‘The case diary was entrusted with an Assistant Commissioner of Police, who never returned it.'' None of the police personnel, now at Aminjikarai, know the details of the case.

However, the Central Crime Branch (CCB) is dusting old files, hoping to make some headway in unsolved cases. But no one knows for sure if something concrete will emerge.