Death of a man suspected to be due to a tiger attack in the late hours of March 17, turned out to be a murder. The police has arrested P. Balar (27) in this connection . The police said that the deceased, K. Bhuvaneswaran (47) and Balar, were residing in a tea estate near Gudalur. Bhuvaneswaran used to perform ‘paravai kavadi’ ritual at temple festivals. He used to get good money for the same.
Balar asked Bhuvaneswaran to give him a chance to perform the ritual, but Bhuvaneswaran refused. This led to the murder. The police initially believed that a tiger could have killed Bhuvaneswaran. A case was registered under 174 (suspicious death) of the Code of Criminal Procedure and the victim’s body was sent for post-mortem. Forest department personnel went to the extent of setting camera traps to monitor movement of the suspected carnivore, but in vain. But the post-mortem report showed that he was not killed by animal. The police recovered the weapon used for the murder.
