Rapist-killer driver shot dead by police

Coimbatore : The rapist and killer of a ten-year-old school girl and her seven-year-old brother in Coimbatore was shot dead by police in an encounter early Tuesday when the accused tried to escape by injuring the cops, police said.

Mohanakrishnan, the prime accused in the case that shocked everyone, was being taken to scene of the crime at Angalakurichi in Tamil Nadu when he attacked the cops in the vehicle by snatching the pistol of a policeman.

He ordered the driver to turn the vehicle and shot at a policeman. In the ensuring encounter, he was killed, police said.

The police had taken him into custody from the Coimbatore jail for taking him to the scene of crime to reconstruct the incident.

Coimbatore police commissioner Sylendra Babu told reporters that the accused shot and injured a sub-inspector and the driver of the police vehicle forcing the policemen to kill him in self-defence.

He said a second accused, Manoharan, had been taken to Angalakurichi where he re-enacted the crime.

Mohanakrishnan, who was working as a driver for businessman Ranjith Jain, on Oct 29 had kidnapped his daughter Muskan Jain and son Hrithik and took them to friend Manoharan?s place at Angalakurichi, about 40 km from Coimbatore.

They were planning to get ransom, but later Mohanakrishnan raped the girl and then threw the siblings in a canal.