In a shocking turn of events, a death initially recorded as a tragic snakebite in a Tamil Nadu village has been uncovered as a premeditated murder plot orchestrated by the victim's own sons. The crime, driven by the lure of massive insurance payouts, has sent ripples through the Podaturpet village in Tiruvallur district.
The Initial Incident and Mounting Suspicion
On October 22, 56-year-old E P Ganesan, a lab assistant at a government girls' higher secondary school in Podaturpet, was found dead at his residence. Based on a complaint from his 26-year-old son, Mohanraj, the Podaturpet police initially registered a case of unnatural death, treating it as a fatal accident involving a venomous snake.
However, the narrative began to crumble when an insurance company raised serious red flags. The company alerted authorities to suspicious conduct by Ganesan's sons regarding multiple high-value claims. This prompted a deeper look into the family's finances, revealing they had availed numerous loans and taken several insurance policies collectively worth a staggering ₹3 crore, amounts wildly disproportionate to their known sources of income.
A Diabolical Plot Unraveled by Police
Acting on the insurance company's alert, senior police officials, including Inspector General (North Zone) Asra Garg and Tiruvallur Superintendent of Police Vivekananda Shukla, ordered the formation of a Special Investigation Team (SIT) on December 6. SP Shukla stated that the unusual insurance coverage immediately cast doubt on the true cause of Ganesan's death.
A meticulous investigation, involving analysis of call records and financial transactions, pieced together a chilling sequence of events. Police discovered that Ganesan's sons—Mohanraj, 26, and Hariharan, 27 (employed at a private firm)—had conspired to murder their father to claim the insurance money.
To execute their plan, they enlisted the help of their friend, 28-year-old G Balaji. Balaji then contacted three others from Manavur village: B Prashanth (35), S Dinakaran (43), and G Naveenkumar (27). This group was tasked with procuring venomous snakes and staging the attacks.
The Staged Attacks and Fatal Delay
The investigation revealed the murder was attempted not once, but twice. In the first attempt, which occurred about a week before Ganesan's death, the conspirators used a cobra. They made the snake bite the sleeping man on his leg. Alert neighbours rushed him to the hospital, where he received treatment and stabilized, surviving the initial attack.
Undeterred, the plotters tried again. In the early hours of October 22, they procured a krait, a snake whose venom acts rapidly. This time, they ensured it bit Ganesan on the neck. After the bite, the snake was killed inside the house itself. Police noted a critical and unexplained delay in taking the victim to a hospital after this second attack, a detail that strongly suggested premeditation.
Officers also found the claim of two separate snakebite incidents within one week highly suspicious, especially as the accused insisted the village was simply infested with snakes. The detailed forensic analysis of phone records and scrutiny of unusual financial transactions worth ₹2 lakh ultimately linked the two sons to their four accomplices.
So far, the police have arrested all six accused—the two sons and their four accomplices. The Tiruvallur police have confirmed that further investigation is ongoing to uncover every detail of this meticulously planned and executed crime, which has left the local community in a state of profound shock.
