A week after 27-year-old Surender attacked 25-year-old Thenmozhi in Chennai’s Chetpet MRTS station, the accused succumbed to his injuries on Friday. A senior police official confirmed to TNM that Surender passed away due to the injuries he sustained to his head. The police, however, could not get a confession as he could not open his mouth following the attack.
Thenmozhi was attacked by Surender on the platform at the station when she was on her way back from her workplace to her hostel. Surender and Thenmozhi were reportedly talking when he suddenly attacked her, slashing her face and hand with a knife. Following the attack, Surender attempted to take his own life by jumping in front of a train.
Jaya, a cleaner at Chetpet station, earlier told TNM that Surender had hit himself with the same knife on his head before jumping. However, he reportedly missed the tracks and instead injured himself seriously on the head before falling inside the train’s compartment.
An FIR had been filed under section 307 of the IPC (attempt to murder) with the SC/ST Atrocities Act. Thenmozhi, who has a fractured jaw and arm, is currently undergoing treatment at Medical College and Hospital. Surender was being treated at the Rajiv Gandhi Government Hospital in Chennai.
Thenmozhi is originally from Erode district and resides in a private working women’s hostel in Egmore and works in a government office in Chetpet. Surender also hailed from Erode.
Thenmozhi, who passed TNPSC Group 4 exam, was appointed as a Registrar of the Cooperative Societies and moved to Chennai just three months ago. Surender was an insurance agent working in Erode. While the two knew each other for three years, Thenmozhi began avoiding Surender when her father turned down Surender’s marriage proposal for his daughter. Thenmozhi is from a Dalit family while Surender belongs to the Naidu caste.
The incident sent shockwaves across the state, and came three years after the death of a young woman named Swathi, who was murdered in broad daylight in Nungambakkam station by a man named Ramkumar.