Inspector R Venkatraman, whose dogged pursuit of a murder, won him the chief minister’s award for excellence in investigation, can now sport a smile of satisfaction. The cop, who has so far collected more than 100 rewards during his 16-year chequered career with the force, cracked the case, which was open for three-and-a-half long years.

The sensational murder of realtor Manivel provoked by advocate E.T Rajendran and carried out by five other accused over a land deal gone sour could not be cracked by the department.

Manivel, 47, ran out of avenues to investigate pretty quickly after taking up the case. Manivel had no siblings, his parents were dead and he was a bachelor. The complainant, Varadarajan, had informed the department that his relative, Manivel, was missing from April 18, 2010. The complaint was registered by the department on May 20.

Soon the team investigating the murder ran out of leads and the whereabouts of Manivel remained a mystery.

While investigating land deals, the police was stumped as a deal had been registered in Sulur limits instead of at the Peelamedu sub-registrar’s office to hoodwink the police. When the land, about 26 cents of it, near the famous Parsn Complex was sold to one Mohana almost a year after the murder, she confided in the police that the land originally belong to Manivel.

This land deal was recorded in the Peelamedu office and police were able to peruse the records and zoom in on five accused – Muthamizh, his elder brother Chandrabose, Murugan alias Saddam Hussein, Sathish and car driver Santhosh Kumar.

“The five had summoned Manivel to an office in Ganapathy, where they killed him during the day. His body was dumped in Thondamuthur, where a man missing case had been filed,” Venkatraman said.

Tying up all the strands, the police finally closed in on Rajendran and arrested him. Police say that Rajendran is the mastermind in the case.

Venkatraman is a MA and Master in Physical Education. He wrote the UPSC and cleared it in 1999. He joined as a sub-inspector in Madurai in 1999 and worked there for almost 11 years. He was later transferred to Coimbatore as an inspector.

He collected the award during the Independence Day celebrations.