Shocking murders for gain shake city

Chennai: An 86-year-old woman, Rajalakshmi, and Annapoorni, her 36-year-old granddaughter, were murdered in their house in Pallikaranai, the killers making off with 28 sovereigns of gold chains, including one kept in the puja room.The police, who rushed to the house after neighbours alerted them, found their partly decomposed bodies on Sunday.

The police said the intruders smothered the two to death using pillows, probably on Friday night, after gaining entry into the house through the back door. “There are injuries on the heads of the victims. Probably, they were hit by iron rods initially and later suffocated to death with pillows. The cupboard had been ransacked,” they said.

The daughter was just then getting ready to visit the house when her mother did not answer her calls on Friday and Saturday. Milk packets delivered at the doorstep had also remained untouched for two days.

Annapoorni, who was divorced, was living with her grandmother, the mother of her late father, Gunasekharan, on Bharathi Street in VGP Shanthi Nagar, Pallikaranai, and working in an automobile showroom in Keezhkattalai. She had decided to stay with her grandmother while her daughter had joined her husband. Annapoorni’s mother Chandra lived in Mandaveli. Rajalakshmi had two sons and three daughters.

One of them, Gunasekharan, had passed away two years ago while the second left home 25 years ago.Of her other two daughters, Jaya lives in Mumbai and Pushpa, in Nanganallur.Neighbours told the police that they had seen Annapoorni on Friday afternoon. One of the neighbours, who had noticed that Rajalakshmi had not drawn the regular kolam in front of the house on Saturday and Sunday, had called her daughter, Meenakshi, in Mambalam.