Kitty Kumaramangalam Murder Case: Delhi Police Conduct Raids To Nab Third Suspect

The Delhi police teams are on the look out for the third suspect in the Kitty Kumaramangalam murder case.

Three Delhi Police teams are conducting raids to nab the third suspect in the murder of Kitty Kumaramangalam, the wife of late Union minister P Rangaraja Kumaramangalam.

The late Union minister's wife was smothered to death on Tuesday night during an attempted robbery at her home in southwest Delhi's Vasant Vihar.

The police had arrested two accused -- Raju (24) and Rakesh Raj, (34) -- and taken them into police remand for two days on Thursday, officials said.

Raids are being conducted in Rajasthan and areas in and around the national capital to nab Suraj, the third suspect in the case, who is suspected to have fled to Jaipur with the robbed gold ornaments to sell them, the police said.

"We have deployed three teams who have been working round-the-clock to locate and nab Suraj. His last location was near Jaipur in Rajasthan but he keeps switching off his mobile phone. Technical surveillance has also been mounted to track him," a senior police officer said.

Financial crisis during the Covid pandemic and the greed for money led the three men to execute the murder-cum-robbery which they had been planning for over a month, police said.

The victim was an easy target for them as Raju had been working in the area as a washerman for over five years and visited the victim's house on a regular basis, the officer said.

As Raju kept the washed clothes back in the victim's cupboard on many occasions because she trusted him and had known him personally, he was aware of the locker and the valuables kept inside the cupboard, police said.

The locker looted by the accused was recovered from Raju on Wednesday, the day he was arrested but it only had essential documents while Rs 60,000 robbed cash was recovered after Rakesh was arrested, they said.

The scooty on which the three accused had arrived to execute their plan, has also been recovered, as their entry into the building was captured on a CCTV camera, police said.

"The two accused have confessed to their crime but the actual truth will known after the third suspect is nabbed and interrogated following which each of their versions will be corroborated," the officer said.

The 70-year-old lawyer was smothered to death on Tuesday night by the three men during the attempted robbery. They first overpowered the victim's house help Mithila, who sustained injuries but was left alive as the accused were in hurry to escape after executing the robbery.

P Rangarajan Kumaramangalam served as a Union minister in the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government between 1998 and 2001.

(PTI inputs)