CHENNAI: The Thiruvallur police have arrested six men and three school girls for the murder of Prem Kumar, a 21-year-old college student. The girls had sought help from a man through Instagram to ‘deal with’ with the student, who had extorted Rs 1 lakh from them.
The accused were identified as A Ashok Kumar (22), M Lenin(21) M Praveen Kumar (21) E Jeganathan (22) R Stephen (21) and R Moses (29) along with three school girls – two studying in Class 10, and one in Class 12. All six men were remanded in judicial custody, and the girls were sent to the Government Observation Home.
“For the past few months, Prem Kumar had threatened to release the private pictures of the Class 10 girls online and extorted Rs 1 lakh from them,” said the police. One of the girls complained about this to her sister in Class 12. The latter then got in touch with Ashok Kumar through Instagram, who was willing to ‘deal with’, Prem Kumar, when she spoke about their ordeal.
Police confirmed that the girls had instigated Ashok Kumar to eliminate Prem Kumar. “On the day of the incident, Ashok Kumar had called Prem Kumar to compromise with the girls. However, he was kidnapped by Ashok and his gang members, and was taken to Eachangadu where he was beaten up for a day to retrieve the money,” said the police.
They then murdered him and buried his body, the police added. The Arambakkam police registered a case under sections pertaining to murder, criminal conspiracy and kidnapping. The deceased Prem Kumar’s body was exhumed on Sunday from Eechangadu village.