Gangster Mani fired at SI before arrest: Police
City police said that gangster ‘CD’ Mani was arrested after he opened fire at a sub-inspector on Wednesday afternoon in Porur. “We were looking for him since last night but located him on Wednesday afternoon. He jumped from bridge fracturing his limbs,” police said.
Mani’s BMW car was intercepted by a team headed by SI Balakrishnan at around 2 pm near the Porur flyover when he opened fire. In a bid to escape from the police, he jumped from Porur flyover and suffered injuries on his legs and hands, a senior police officer claimed.
Both SI and Mani are under medical care.
Mani alias Manikandan faces nearly 30 cases including 10 murders, extortions, kidnapping etc and his lawyers had been crying foul since Tuesday night saying that police are planning to eliminate him in an encounter. Police, however, denied it and said it was not true. “We were after him since last night, so his lawyers were spreading baseless information. We got information that he was hiding in Valasaravakkam and our team zeroed in on him. That is when his car was intercepted near Porur flyover,” a senior police officer said.
“He fired at the police party. Luckily, no serious injury though one bullet grazed the shoulder of the SI. On chase, he jumped from a bridge, sustained injuries and was taken to hospital,” noted city police chief Shankar Jiwal.
Mani, a millionaire gangster with a strong political connection and control over the real estate business in South Chennai, started his life by selling pirated CDs. He was in the news on March 3 last year when a gang targeted him and ‘Kakkathope’ Balaji by hurling bombs and also by opening fire when they were travelling in an SUV in broad daylight at Teynampet on Anna Salai. They had escaped without injuries.
While Balaji was arrested by police in February from Andhra Pradesh, police are still looking for the rival gang members.