Chennai: With his data management proficiency, a techie in Dubai helped the cops in cracking the case of a murder attempt on him a day prior to the ghastly killing of S. Swathi. Saravanan (39), who is working as a data analyst in a module in the Command and Control Center of Dubai Police with respect to crime detection, arrived in the city with his son and wife Radhika for annual vacation on June 22. While the father and son went to his parents' place in Kolathur, Radhika went to her parents' house.

On June 23, Saravanan took his father, Sambandam, for a medical review at a private hospital in Greams road, accompanied by his mother and Radhika's cousin. An assailant hacked Saravanan on his right shoulder when he was walking towards a hotel on Ormes road after he had dropped the other three at the hotel and parked his car, around 2 pm. His attempt to grab the assailant was in vain as the latter fled the scene with his accomplice lying in wait in a two-wheeler. After being treated in a private hospital, Saravanan initially lodged a complaint with Kilpauk police.

A perusal of the CCTV footage from CSI Bain School ruled out the incident being a case of mistaken identity and the cops suggested that Saravanan check the footage around his house. He checked that footage to find a hit squad had been lying in wait in front of his Kolathur residence from 10.20 am onwards. “Since the cops became busy after Swathi’s murder, I offered to help them with analysing the mobile tower dump data. I zeroed in on 5 suspect numbers. With the help of the data, cops nabbed three people who had been hirelings behind the murder attempt,” Saravanan told DC.

Sources said the trio was remanded to judicial custody and they had confessed that a person named Kannan from Adyar had hired them. A look into the call records of Radhika, her mother Thilakavathi and Radhika's aunt revealed that their phones were used to contact Kannan, who is also local unit AIADMK functionary. Kannan had also spoken to the arrested trio on his mobile, which went inactive after the attack. He had also been using his driver's mobile number to communicate with the trio. Saravanan, who is upset with the pace at which the case is progressing, had knocked on the doors of the City Police Commissioner T.K. Rajendran to bring all the accused to book.