Chennai techie murder: Cell tower data helped cops find accused

The data from the tower dump used by the police helped find the suspect in the Swathi murder case. The police were in possession of the tower dump, which had a total of six lakh mobile numbers having access to Nungambakkam telecom circle. The circle has about 10 mobile phone towers of different service providers.

Using this data, the police managed to narrow down to 30 suspect mobile numbers. The numbers were further narrowed down to five strong suspects, on whom the surveillance was mounted. Arrested suspect Ramkumar also figured in the last five suspect mobile subscribers.

In a first, the cops had cloned the mobile to dig the digital trail. And it worked accordingly as a text sent from Ramkumar’s mobile before the murder landed soon after the cloned device was activated with the help of the mobile phone service provider.

After the confirmation was made, the city police gave the go-ahead for Ramkumar’s detention. The Tirunelveli rural district police executed the detention order. On the day of the murder, Ramkumar, who fled by foot, was seen as many as 20 times on CCTV footage. His video grab trail went cold after he passed by Sourashtra Nagar 8th street.