Man held for killing woman, dumping body in canal

Trichy: Trichy district police on Wednesday arrested a 35-year-old man on charges of murdering a 64-year-old woman and disposing of her body in a canal near Musiri. R Hariharasudhan from Gandhi Nagar allegedly beat D Dhanabackiyam, a relative, to death, stuffed her body in a sack and discarded it in the Mullipadi irrigation canal. Police said Dhanabackiyam was reported missing from her residence on Sept 4 by her relative Rajendran who filed a complaint on Sept 6. During investigation, police came to know that she was last seen riding pillion on Hariharasudhan's motorcycle on Sept 4. Police caught Hariharasudhan from Kallakurichi, who on interrogation revealed that he had borrowed Rs 3,000 from the elderly woman a few days ago. Dhanabackiyam humiliated him publicly for not repaying it.Enraged by this, he convinced her to accompany him on his motorcycle promising to return her money. He took her to a remote location in Gandhi Nagar where he bludgeoned her to death with a wooden log. Thereafter, he stuffed her body in a sack and discarded it in the canal. He also robbed her of her gold chain. On Tuesday, police retrieved Dhanabackiyam's decomposed body from the canal. The postmortem was conducted at Musiri GH. The accused was arrested and presented before the court on Wednesday. Police also recovered the gold chain.