Chennai: The Coimbatore police opened fire on two of the seven suspects in the murder of a 24-year-old man near Coimbatore Court Complex on Tuesday. The police then arrested all the suspects who tried to flee the spot.
This is the first time after a decade the city police shot two persons in their legs.
According to a report on The New Indian Express, the arrested were identified as J Joshua, S Gowtham, M Hari alias Gowtham, C Bharani Soundar, V Arunkumar and J Daniel. All of them were daily wage workers.
On Monday night, a special team went to nab the accused based on a tip-off. However, the accused fled to Kotagiri in the Nilgiris district. The Coimbatore police immediately told the Nilgiris police who arrested the accused and handed them over to the city police team.
Following this, the police were on their way to Coimbatore with the accused when two of them attacked the police and tried to escape. The police while Joshua and Gowtham were trying to flee immediately opened fire on their leg in retaliation to the attack, Coimbatore commissioner V Balakrishnan said as per Hindustan Times.
The two injured suspects have been admitted to the hospital.
A police officer Yusuf who was attacked by the suspects with a machete suffered injuries.
To the question of how the suspects' accessed weapons in an isolated place, Balakrishnan said the gang had hidden weapons while escaping from Coimbatore, as per The New Indian Express.
However, the police said that they are yet to establish the motive behind the murder of Gokul.
The gang was booked on sections including punishment for murder, rioting, armed with a deadly weapon and others of Indian Penal Code.
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