Sex trade angle surfaces in MGR Nagar crime case

CHENNAI: A murder for gain or crime of passion? Investigation into Wednesday’s murder of 38-year-old L Ranjitham of Nesapakkam is now increasingly focussed on the second angle, with murky details of the victim’s life coming to light.Ranjitham’s body with a cut injury on the neck was found by her husband Loganathan (41), when he returned to their second-floor apartment in Jai Balaji Nagar Extension around 4 pm. A 10-sovereign ‘thali’ chain was missing, while other ornaments were intact.It was the scene of crime that aroused police suspicions about the dead woman’s life. Ranjitham was found on the bed in a dishevelled condition, with a condom packet lying nearby, a senior police official told Express. Besides, a box containing 30 condoms was found in an almirah and her husband was unaware of it, he said. There appeared to be no signs of struggle and things had not been disturbed in the house. Around 25 sovereigns of jewellery in the safe and cash of Rs 5,000 in the kitchen were intact. The gold bangles on the victim’s body too were intact. This led the police to suspect that the killer was known to the victim. Grilled till the wee hours of Thursday, Loganathan finally spilled the beans: His homemaker-wife had turned into a commercial sex worker after his money lending business floundered. “The victim’s activities were conducted with the full knowledge of her family,” the police officer said.The couple had been married for 18 years and had a daughter, a plus one student. Loganathan was a native of Tirupur, while Ranjitham belonged to Madurai. The two met and fell in love, when she came to work in a hosiery unit in Tirupur, sources said. They had shifted to the city several years ago and were living in their present apartment for the last two years. “The couple constantly kept changing their house possibly to escape scrutiny,” the senior police official said.In a bid to track down the killers, the investigating teams were checking the victim’s call logs and around eight-nine persons had been picked for questioning on the basis of records, he said.