Tamil Nadu   

Arms seizure: police custody of some accused may be sought

K.T. Sangameswaran

Police launch hunt for Raghu and his wife Sudharani The police are also probing whether Raghu had stayed anywhere in the vicinity of Ambattur before moving to Ayapakkam.

Chennai: The Tamil Nadu Police are planning to take into custody some of the accused, arrested on Friday, in connection with the seizure of rocket shells and launchers in Andhra Pradesh on September 8.

The police have launched a hunt for Raghu of Nellore and his wife Sudharani, who escaped after abandoning their house and an engineering unit.

The police early on Friday arrested Sivaji, Kumar, Ramesh, Arunachalam, Muthusamy, Annamalai, all owners of engineering firms located at Padi, Korattur and Mogappair, on Chennai's outskirts, and Veerabadra Rao, agent of a transport company at Mannurpet.

An official associated with investigation said the seven had been remanded to judicial custody. The Tamil Nadu Police might move court seeking police custody of a few of them to obtain more information.

Preliminary investigations revealed that Raghu was a diploma holder in mechanical engineering and had also studied computer-aided designing.

He had furnished a cell phone number on his visiting card he had given to the house owner, but the instrument has been switched off.

All that the police know is that he was staying in a portion of a house at Ayapakkam and left the city on a motorcycle on September 9.

He had left behind household goods such as cooking gas cylinders, a refrigerator and a television set.

An album containing photographs and books in Telugu have been seized.

The police are also probing whether Raghu had stayed anywhere in the vicinity of Ambattur before moving to Ayapakkam.

He came to Ambattur in 2002 and, with the help of engineering unit owners, manufactured rocket components.

Raghu was running Bharath Fine Engineering at Padi.

It is not known whether he had produced any weapons component, the sources said.

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