NE NEWS SERVICE
CHENNAI, JAN 27
Greater Chennai police have arrested eight persons in connection with an alleged attempt of attack on the residence of Thuglak Editor S Gurumurthy.
According to police, a group of motorcycle-borne persons were planning to throw petrol bombs at Gurumurthy’s residence on Sunday morning, but sped away after seeing the police security.
Police on Monday said special probe teams were set up and arrested eight persons – Sasikumar, Janardhanan, Balu, Tamizh, Prasanth, Sakthi, Deepan and Vasudevan.
Two persons out of the group were moving around Gurumurthy’s residence in a suspicious manner and a dog inside started barking. As a result of this, the police and security personnel chased them away and foiled the attack.
In a statement, police said Sasikumar had several cases pending against him including that of petrol bomb attack on Woodlands Hotel and Sathyam theatre here.
Meanwhile, in a series of tweets, Mr. Gurumurthy said that police had informed that they have arrested two associates of a Tamil extremist group. I must thank and congratulate the TN for swift action. Within 2 Hrs DC, JC & CoP came home to assure me of action which they have done, tweeted Gurumurthy citing a media report about attack at his residence.
Six bike-borne assailants had on Sunday tried to hurl a petrol bomb at the residence of Gurumurthy in Mylapore here.
In a tweet, Gurumurthy said “lessons for the attackers. One, they must know I have been facing threats for 30 years. Theirs is not new to me. Two, they need better training and more courage.,”.
Seeing the CCTV recording my friend Ajit Doval (now NSA) insisted on coming home to see how it could be secured and advised us what we should do and should not. Ravichandran JD IB also visited me personally often to keep me on the alert
— S Gurumurthy (@sgurumurthy) January 27, 2020
He has further tweeted saying, “the current story goes back to the arrest of Police Fakruddin in 2013 who confessed he had been caught before he could shoot me. He had done recce at home & office. The police then insisted I must have a gun man with me and advised us to install CCTV cameras at home and office.”
“In March 2014 we found attempts to break our house doors & found on CCTV masked strong man attempting to enter the home in diverse ways between 1.30 am & 3 am. It definitely was a serious thing. We have over 2 hours recording of his attempt. Then police guards were posted at home,” he said in a subsequent tweet.
“Seeing the CCTV recording my friend Ajit Doval (now NSA) insisted on coming home to see how it could be secured and advised us what we should do and should not. Ravichandran JD IB also visited me personally often to keep me on the alert,” he said.
“As our lifestyle doesn’t allow rearing a dog, one of my long-standing friend started sending a dog with its guard everyday between 10 pm and 5 am. This has been happening for 5 years now. It is that dog that alerted the security and made the miscreants attack impossible,” he added in another tweet.
