CHENNAI: Chennai Police arrested three persons including a woman advocate in connection with the murder of Tamil Nadu BSP President, K Armstrong, whom police said was murdered in retaliation for the murder of rowdy, "Arcot" V Suresh.

The arrested persons were identified as S Malarkodi (52) of Triplicane, K Sathish (33) of Thirunindravur and K Hariharan (27) of Old Washermanpet.

Malarkodi is the wife of "Thottam" Sekar, who was killed by a rival gang over two decades ago. Sekar's two sons exacted revenge for their father's death in 2021 by murdering another A+ category rowdy, Mylai Sivakumar, who was allegedly behind Sekar's murder.

Police sources said that Malarkodi had allegedly transferred a huge amount, running into several lakhs to the bank account of one of the main accused arrested for Armstrong's murder, days before the incident.

Malarkodi, police said, practices at the Metropolitan Magistrate Court, Egmore. Sathish is the son of a DMK functionary, police sources said.

Malarkodi was arrested by the city police in 2019 when she hurled country bombs at a gang that accosted her while she was returning from court in a retaliatory attack.

Sources said that she already has a pending murder case against her.

BSP leader K Armstrong was murdered by a gang on July 5 at Venugopal Swami Koil street in Perambur.

City police arrested eight persons including the younger brother of Arcot Suresh within three hours of the murder. Three more persons were arrested subsequently.

On Sunday, K Thiruvengadam (33), one of the suspects was shot dead in a "police encounter" near Madhavaram, when he allegedly opened fire at the police team which rounded him up after he fled while being taken to secure weapons used in Armstrong's murder.