Date:21/03/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/03/21/stories/2008032156870300.htm

Tamil Nadu

Villagers thank police with posters

R. Krishnamoorthy

For tracing and restoring a lecturer back to her parents from kidnappers

Keep it up: Collector R. Sudalaikannan presenting a medal to the Jayankondam DSP Chinniah on Wednesday.

ARIYALUR: Police personnel in the nascent Ariyalur district must be riding the crest of motivation.

Four special teams which had met with success in rescuing a college lecturer from kidnappers and restoring her to her parents were honoured by the District Collector R. Sudalaikannan with medals. Twenty five police personnel right from Deputy Superintendents of Police to constables received the medals on Wednesday.

The Superintendent of Police S. Muthusamy said that the sense of achievement of the personnel was high owing to their fulfilment of the promise he had made to the lecturer’s agitated parents within a day of their staging a road roko in Ariyalur along with their relatives. Soon after the rescue, villagers of Thevanur to which the lecturer belonged expressed their gratitude by putting up posters in Jayankondam thanking the police for their response. Fanning out to Chidambaram, Kumbakonam and Perambalur besides Ariyalur, the teams narrowed down on a house in Kumbakonam where the kidnappers stayed and rescued the lecturer. Seven of the nine kidnappers who managed to escape were apprehended on the subsequent day. The kidnapping was organised at the behest of a youth of Variyankaval who had earlier sought the lecturer’s hand . He had confessed that he was unable to bear the disappointment. Incidentally, the lecturer was rescued on the evening of Monday, the day her marriage with another youth had been planned. The kidnapping did not dilute the resolve of the bridegroom’s family to fulfil the marriage proposal at the earliest.