According to police, Rohit went out on a moped on Saturday night. At about 7 pm, a youth asked him for a lift. After they travelled some distance, the youth pulled out a knife, asked to stop the vehicle and follow him. Four more youth joined the two at a particular place.

Sivaji received a call around 9 pm demanding a ransom of Rs 5 lakh and the caller threatened to kill the boy if the money was not paid. Sivaji agreed to give Rs 2 lakh in cash and the balance in the form of silver bars.

While negotiations were on, neighbours came to know of the kidnap and informed the police, who instructed Sivaji to fix a place where the money could be handed over to the captors. The kidnappers told Sivaji to meet them at a remote place in Aryagoundanpatti. The neighbours and the police followed him at a distance. While Sivaji was handing over a bag of money, the police and neighbours swooped down and overpowered the gang.

According to the police, two of the gang members who threatened to knife the boy and tried to get away, were caught. In the melee, Rohit’s hand was injured with a knife. Interrogations revealed that the kidnap was executed by some unemployed youth who wanted to earn some quick money. The arrested include Manikandan (19) and Raj (23) from Selathanpatti, Palanisamy (20), Sivaprakash (23) and Srinivasan (21) from Ariyagoundenpatti.

CoP Sunil Kumar Singh gave a cash award to the team of police that rescued the boy in less than 12 hours.

The Speaker said the issue could be taken up for discussion tomorrow, but the enraged AIADMK members, led by Mr Panneerselvam staged a walk-out. They were followed by members of MDMK.

Later, talking to newspersons outside, Mr Panneerselvam alleged political interference in allowing an Industry to be set up at Mamallapuram.

Alleging corruption to the tune of several crores in the deal, the AIADMK leader said they tried to raise the issue in the House, expecting that the government might come out with a clarification, but the Speaker, unilaterally denied permission.

After the members staged walk-out, Chief Minister M Karunanidhi accused the AIADMK of staging the walk-out after giving notice for the adjournment motion at around 0910 hrs today, to give an impression that they tried to raise a very sensitive issue.

It was noted the average fees collected from each student, the total number of students and the expenditure by the school was calculated by the committee. It also included the salaries of teaching and non-teaching staff. Some other expenses like electricity and telephone charges were also taken into consideration.

The Chief Educational Officer would be fixing the fees for each individual school. On Pallikalvi.in details of the fee structure would be posted. It would be for the benefit of parents and schools. It was told by K.Govindarajan, Committee Chairperson said that the format was designed in relation with the fixing of the fees. This format was therefore, forwarded to 10,934 schools out of which 10,233 responded.

It was seen that the fee structure was fixed for 10,233 schools on the basis of income and expenditure of the schools. It was seen that if the income that was collected from the students was more than expenditures, the schools were request to reduce the fees.

Official sources said all those injured had been treated as outpatients at a hospital here and discharged.

They said the incident occurred between Dhanushkodi and Katchathivu, an islet ceded to Sri Lanka by India.

The fishing nets and catch were also taken away by the Lankan naval personnel, they said.

The injured were part of a group of about 500 fishermen who had put out to sea in 300 boats last week, officials said.

Two of the injured fishermen told officials they were fishing in Indian waters when they were attacked.

A bulletin issued by the Indian National Center for Ocean Information Services (INCOIS), Hyderabad, said the earthquake measuring 7.4 on the Richter scale off the west coast of northern Sumatra around 11.30 in the morning.

But as the day progressed without incident, the advisory was withdrawn later in the afternoon. As a result of the alert in Chennai, the ‘Kodai Thiruvizha’ organised by the Tamil Nadu Tourism Development Corporation on Island Grounds attracted thousands of visitors as beachgoers were turned back by the police.

However, he failed to appear before the court after which the police arrested him from his residence this morning and produced him before the judge.

Police suspected enmity to be the reason behind Durai’s action.
Durai is facing charges of misappropriating Rs three crore from the church funds and was asked to go on leave by the church authorities.

Of particular interest, he said was the recovery made in a case in which a 23-year-old woman was robbed by two men who tied her up and escaped with 18 sovereigns of gold jewellery.

Four persons Suriyan alias Shiva Suriyan (47), Ganapathy (53), Sudhakaran alias Container Sudhakar (33) and Satheesh (21) in connection with the incident. Following their interrogation, police found out they were also wanted in a number of waylaying incidents at Saint Thomas Mount and Adambakkam areas, he said. Based on their confession, a police team seized 26-sovereign gold jewellery worth Rs 3 lakh from their possession.

In a house burglary case at Maduravoyal, police have arrested Prabhu (27) and seized 25-sovereign gold jewellery from him.

Also, in connection with a waylaying incident in 2009 in which Ravichandran was relieved of Rs 3.81 lakh cash he had withdrawn from the bank, police arrested Venkatesh (21) and recovered Rs 1.15 lakh in cash.

Over 45-sovereign gold jewellery worth Rs 7 lakh have been recovered from Mannar alias Mallar Mannan who had involved in house break-ins at Madipakkam, Pallikaranai, Adambakkam and Selaiyur.

Four bike borne men who were wanted in a series of chain-snatching incidents at Porur, Poonamallee, Ambathur, Korattur, Maduravoyal, Avadi, Thirumullaivoyal and Chitlapakkam were arrested and 54-sovereign gold jewellery worth Rs six lakh were recovered from them, he said.

Speaking on the development in the double murder case involving a rowdy and an advocate near Poonamallee Court complex recently, Jangid said police have nearly identified the 17 persons who were absconding in the case and added that they would be arrested soon.

It may be recalled that police have already arrested four persons, a part of a hired gang in connection with the murder case on 6 May.

”The body should be capable of taking quick and firm decisions so that many proposals for new colleges pending with the MCI could be dealt with expeditiously and disposed of,” Mr Naidu added.

AIMA welcomed the Centre’s move to bring an ordinance to amend the Indian Medical Council Act, 1956 to empower the government to intervene in the event of MCI members, inspectors, including the President and the Vice-President, being unable to perform and on grounds of misconduct,

In a statement here on Thursday, Ms. Jayalalithaa said Mr. Karunanidhi had “shamelessly played the Dalit card” to neutralise the Dalit leaders who, in Parliament, were demanding Mr. Raja’s resignation.

She said Mr. Karunanidhi did not address any of the issues raised in connection with the scam. Instead, he chose to criticise the Opposition for raising all pertinent issues, on the ground that Mr. Raja is a Dalit. His aim was to deflect people’s attention from the scam,

According to sources, the accident took place when the deceased were returning from Tirupathi to Ernakulam in Kerala.

Two women and three men belonging to Ernakulam in Kerala died on the spot. The bodies were kept in the Coimbatore Medical College.