The Thursday’s petrol bomb attack on Dalits, in which one person was killed and four others were injured, has turned out to be a revenge murder transcending the caste factor.
While seven persons belonging to a caste Hindu group surrendered, the police arrested two Dalit youth. The two, G. Anand (29) and C. Periyasamy (28), had conspired with the caste Hindus as the gang to which the victim, Muthuviji, belonged to was a common enemy to both the groups.
Initially, the police thought the murderous assault was meant to take revenge on the October-2012 petrol bomb attack on a vehicle on Ring Road, in which seven youth were killed and 13 others sustained burn injuries.
“While the caste Hindu youth of Anuppanadi were nurturing hatred against the Dalits who are accused in the petrol bomb attack, another Dalit group of the same locality came forward to help the caste Hindus in eliminating them,” the police said on Sunday.
The police revealed that extreme animosity prevailed between two Dalit groups – one was led by D. ‘Rogue’ Pandi and the other was led by C. Arasan alias Arasamaharajan – in Anuppanadi since 2007 over an eve-teasing incident. Since then the groups have taken on each other on several occasions, resulting in four murders. Pandi was murdered in 2010 and his accomplice, G. Senthil, was killed the following year by Arasan’s gang.
It was Senthil’s brother Anand and his relative Periyasamy (belonging to Pandi’s group) who conspired with the caste Hindu youth to attack Arasan gang members, including his son Ramar, who is the prime accused in the 2012 petrol-bomb case.
The police found the involvement of ‘Rogue’ Pandi gang after going through the mobile phone records of G. Kumaran, one of the persons who surrendered. The Dalit youth had tipped off the movements of Ramar and others, the police said.
