Father and son Veeramalai and Nallathambi, who are both farmers, were killed in Mudaliapatti village in Karur district on Monday for allegedly trying to protect an encroached waterbody in their village.
While the police are yet to attribute a motive to the crime, reports suggest that the murder was in relation to a PIL reportedly filed by them against the encroachment of Mudaliapatti lake before the Madurai Bench of the Madras High Court.
Six men surrendered on Wednesday afternoon at the Madurai District Judicial Magistrate Court in relation to the murder — Perumal alias Soundarrajan (36), Prabakaran (27), Kaviyarasan (34), Sasikumar (34), Stalin (22) and Shanmugam.
Speaking to TNM, Karur DSP Kummaraja, who heads the case said, “They have not confessed to the crime. They have surrendered in court because they knew the police were on the lookout for them. We will now be able to begin investigating.”
The men will be taken to Karur Judicial Magistrate Court and be investigated by a team headed by the DSP.
Three teams headed by three Inspectors and supervised by Karur DSP were formed to investigate this case and to locate the accused.
According to reports, Nallathambi was returning home on his bike after having delivered the flowers harvested from his land at a Trichy market when a gang intercepted and attacked him with sharp weapons. This gang had then headed to Nallathambi’s house where they attacked and killed his father. Both father and son died on the spot.
An FIR was registered in Kulithalai police station under sections 147 (Rioting), 148 (Rioting, armed with deadly weapon) and 302 (Murder). The incident took place around 8.30 am on Monday.
A report in the New Indian Express stated that the deceased had worked with activists and an advocate to remove encroachers from the village lake, spread over 39 acres. Though the court ordered the district administrators to remove encroachers, they met with non-cooperation from them. This led a contempt case being filed in court. Following this, based on the direction of the high court, surveyors and the village administrative officer surveyed the lake on July 25 and marked the boundaries with help from Nallathambi and Veeramalai.