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A 26-year-old tribal man was tied to an iron pole and beaten to death allegedly by a group of six men on Thursday, October 9, in Tamil Nadu’s Chengalpattu district. The incident took place in a plastic chair manufacturing unit near Red Hills, where the group accused the victim of stealing scrap material. The shocking incident has drawn comparisons to the 2018 lynching of tribal man Madhu in Kerala’s Attapady.
The body of the youth belonging to a Scheduled Tribe community, identified as Manimaran from Nallur panchayat near Chengalpattu, was later found in a nearby canal.
According to police, Manimaran had been caught allegedly stealing scrap from the Gripwell Multi Tech Private Limited factory a few days earlier. According to reports, the company had demanded Rs 6 lakhs when he was allegedly caught during previous thefts, but was let off after being warned.
On Thursday night, he was allegedly caught again, following which the workers tied him to a pole outside the premises and assaulted him with iron rods. “He died on the spot. They then disposed of the body in a nearby canal and fled,” a police official told TNM.
The Red Hills police, on Friday, October 10, arrested six men under charges of murder and sections of the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act. The arrested include Khaleel ul Rahman, owner of the factory; his son Syed Farook; and workers Abdul Malik, Vignesh, Ashok Kumar, and Selvakumar.
Manimaran’s family had approached the police to report him missing. Following this, the police launched a search operation and later recovered his body, which was sent for postmortem examination. Further investigation is underway.