In the early hours of September 16, 2023, a fire destroyed a small hut in Allanur village, near Chengalpet, south of Chennai. Police recovered charred remains of a male body, which a woman identified as that of her son Suresh R, 38. A physical trainer, Suresh had recently moved from Chennai to his village.
The case, which initially appeared to be a fire accident, however, took a shocking twist by the end of December with the discovery that the presumed victim, Suresh, is actually alive.
The officers at Orathy police station knew only that Suresh, a polytechnic graduate, was a separated man who stayed alone. The hut was in a sparsely populated area.
Suresh’s friend, Dilli Babu, 39, had disappeared just a week before Suresh’s alleged death. Babu’s family filed a missing report at Ennore police, north of Chennai, on September 23.
As there was no progress in the missing person case investigation, Babu’s family filed a fresh complaint with the Avadi city police commissionerate, and also moved a petition in the court. Weeks later, the police stumbled upon a significant clue when they questioned Babu’s elder brother, Palani.
“Palani said that Suresh used to visit their house often and that Babu used to stay with Suresh also. This led the police delving deeper into Suresh’s movements before the fire incident. They found that Babu’s phone had been near Suresh’s hut in the days leading up to the fire,” said R Shivakumar, Inspector at the Acharapakkam police station in Chengalpet, 100 km from Ennore, who has been probing the case.
One Amutha provided crucial information that she had seen Suresh with three others around the time of the incident.
“A week ago, a new suspect emerged: Harikrishnan, a close associate of Suresh. Investigation led the police to Vellore in pursuit of Harikrishnan where his father said he hadn’t turned up for several weeks. But the father was able to give the phone number Harikrishnan used to call him many weeks ago,” said inspector Shivakumar.
Tracking the location of Harikrishnan’s phone number, police reached a house in Arakkonam near Vellore where, to their surprise, they found not only Harikrishnan but also Suresh.
During questioning, Suresh confessed to a diabolical plot: he had staged his own death to claim a Rs 1 crore insurance payout.
Suresh had paid over Rs 50,000 as insurance premium in the last two years. He initially planned to claim a body from a government hospital, misusing the name of organisations that help authorities with funerals of unclaimed bodies. Suresh then reconnected with his old acquaintance, Babu, who, along with his family, was Suresh’s tenant a decade ago. This rekindled friendship was to play a pivotal role in the events that followed.
“Harikrishnan and Babu reached Suresh house in Allanur village on September 9, and a local youth, Keerthi Rajan, 23, also joined them. They had been drinking all these days. On September 13, Suresh had revealed his plan to Harikrishnan and Rajan. It was Rajan who targeted Babu on September 15 evening when he was drunk. They strangled Babu with a generator string and set his body and the hut ablaze in the wee hours using petrol, intending to pass it off as that of Suresh’s,” Shivakumar said.
Police have also arrested Rajan, who drove a taxi in Vellore. All the three accused were sent to judicial custody on Monday morning.
