According to the police, A Murugesan, a native of Bargur Hills in Erode district, was on Monday nabbed by the Kolathur police in Salem district after he had slipped out of the central prison in Belgaum district in Karnataka on April 22. Acting on a tip-off, the police picked him up from Kannamoochi village in Kolathur.

Murugesan was a convict awarded the death sentence for the murder of five people from two families in the neighbouring State. According to the police, Murugesan, while working in a sugarcane farm at Kollegal in Karnataka, tried to misbehave with two women, who too had migrated to the State from Erode for work. As they resisted his advances, Murugesan killed not just them, but members of their families too in the farm on May 12, 2015. The victims were Rajendran (37), his wife Rajamma (35), their daughter Roja (9), Kasi (40) and his wife Sivamma (35). Subsequently, the Kollegal police arrested and lodged him in the prison at Chamrajnagar.

After trial, the court awarded Murugesan death penalty in 2017. He was then shifted to the Hindalga prison in Belgaum district.

However, on April 22 this year, Murugesan managed to escape from prison by scaling the compound wall when the security at the premises was minimal in view of the police being deployed for polling duty, sources said. His escape came to light only during the roll call.