By Jilawatan

Police have found that a former assistant of actor Asin who was said to have gone missing in Mumbai while in her employment, is very much in Chennai. He had enacted the drama without his family’s knowledge, the police believe, to extort money from the actress.

On March 17, Nalla Muthukumaraswamy’s mother Sudalaivadivu, 55, approached the suburban police commissionerate seeking help to trace her missing’ son.

According to the petition filed by Sudalaivadivu, her son had worked as Asin’s assistant for four years. She also contacted the Ghajini star, the petition added, but there had been no “proper response” from her regarding his whereabouts. Sudalaivadivu also produced a copy of the statement Asin’s father Joseph Thottumkal had given to the Oshiwara police station in Mumbai saying Muthukumaraswamy had quit the job on January 21, 2009.

Joseph Thottumkal said Muthukumaraswamy had worked as a touch-up boy with Asin for two years. “He wanted to come with us to Mumbai. After reaching there he had problems with the language. He voluntarily resigned in January. We have all the settlement vouchers with regard to this,” he said.

Meanwhile, the Tiruvallur district police began investigating the case and managed to track down Muthukumaraswamy’s friends Madhavan and Keshavan, both residents of Mumbai. “When we checked their mobile phones, we found that Muthukumaraswamy had called them from Chennai and he had gone to Tirupathi with his friend Madhavan,” said Tiruvallur district deputy superintendent of police Rangarajan.

He said that Muthukumaraswamy was in Chennai when his mother went to Mumbai in search of him. “He had asked his friend Keshavan to give his mother Rs 2,000 for buying tickets for her to return to Chennai. He had enacted this entire drama hoping that the actor’s family would give his family some money to tide over the crisis. Now he has compromised his chances of getting into the police force which was what he was aiming for,” he said.

Sudalaivadivu told TOI that she was happy to know that her son was alive. “If this is a drama, I do not know why he did this. Only after I see him will I be able to know,” she said.