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Nagendran, a history-sheeter and the prime accused in the murder of Tamil Nadu Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) leader K Armstrong, died on Thursday morning, October 9 at the Government Stanley Hospital in Chennai reportedly due to multiple organ failure and cardiac arrest.
Nagendran, also known as Nagu, had been undergoing treatment at the hospital for the past three months. He had undergone a liver transplant a few years ago and was suffering from renal complications.
Nagendran was named as the key conspirator in the murder of BSP leader K Armstrong. Armstrong was hacked to death in July 2024, and the case was later transferred to the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) on the Madras High Court orders.
Nagendran had booked with at least 28 criminal cases against him, including five for murder and 14 for attempted murder. He was acquitted in all except two cases — an attempted murder case under the Pulianthope police limits and the Armstrong murder case.
His son, advocate and former Congress functionary N Aswathaman, has also been named as an accused in the Armstrong murder case. He along with another gangster Sambhav Senthil, allegedly conspired with Nagendran to eliminate Armstrong.
The father-son duo had longstanding enmity with Armstrong, reportedly over his interference in their business operations.
Following the Nagendran death, the Principal Sessions Court in Chennai has granted interim bail to Aswathaman till October 13 to attend his father’s funeral with certain conditions.
A resident of Sathyamurthi Nagar in Vyasarpadi, Nagendran had been serving a life sentence at Puzhal Central Prison for the 1997 murder of All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) functionary Stanley Shanmugam. Despite being behind bars, reports say he continued to control his gang’s operations through his associates.
Nagendran was one of north Chennai’s most notorious gangsters. He came under the police radar in 1990 when he was arrested by Vyasarpadi police in an attempt-to-murder case.
By the mid-1990s, he had become a trusted aide of the late gangsters Vellai Ravi and Viji, who dominated the extortion and protection rackets in areas like Vyasarpadi, Washermenpet, and Royapuram.
(With IANS inputs)