A relative of senior Congress leader and former Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram, was abducted and killed by a three-member gang near Coimbatore, the police said today.
The three men were arrested late last night from a town near Vellore, they said.
The family of C Shivamurthy, 47, a knitwear exporter, had lodged a missing person complaint on June 25 in Coimbatore's neighbouring city, Tirupur after he did not return home from work.
On receiving an alert from police in that Tirupur, Coimbatore police traced Mr Shivamurthy's car to an area near Vellore through the GPRS equipment fitted in the vehicle around midnight.
A police patrol on the National Highway then located the car at Vengili in Vellore district and arrested three men in connection with the case.
On being questioned, the trio admitted to abducting Shivamurthy from Tirupur, and claimed to have taken him to Mettupalayam near Coimbatore on Monday and killed him.
Later, they dumped his body in a lake near Hosur on the Karnataka-Tamil Nadu border, the police said.
The trio were identified as Gouthaman, Vimal and Manibharathi from Coimbatore.
Based on their confession, another person was arrested at Karamadai, about 35 km from Coimbatore this morning.
Mr Shivamurthy is the son-in-law of Chidambaram's sister- in-law, the police said, adding they were ascertaining the exact reason for the murder.
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