Progressive farmer and member of Palayam Channel Water Users’ Association R. Ganesan (55) of Kurichi under Melapalayam police station limits was murdered here on Thursday morning allegedly by his nephew and his friend over a property dispute. They have been arrested.
Police said two armed youths hacked Ganesan, popularly known as ‘Kurichi’ Ganesan or ‘Seva Bharathi’ Ganesan, here to death when he was about to clean a Vinayaka temple near the channel close to his house around 5 a.m. before performing puja as usual.
The incident came to light only when the public who came to the channel to take bath around 6 a.m. informed the police.
During investigation, the police found that Ganesan and his elder brother Muthiah were cultivating paddy in their lands in and around Kurichi for which their younger sister Valli Mayil of Srivaikundam in Tuticorin district was also reportedly claiming ownership.
A civil case is pending before the court in this connection.
Meanwhile, Valli Mayil’s son M. Bharathi Rajagopal (24) and his friend K. Muthuramalingam (26), also from Srivaikundam, hacked Ganesan to death, the police said.
In agriculturists’ grievance day meets, Ganesan, sitting in the first row, would raise a range of issues of farmers were facing and he vehemently opposed the conversion of cultivable lands into housing plots with the support of officials.
He even succeeded in taking a few officials, including then District Revenue Officer P. Uma Maheshwari, to a few ranches where the realtors had erected barbed wire fence before converting them into smaller plots.
Subsequently, he got an assurance from the officer that the revenue officials would not back the realtors’ plans.
Hence, the police initially suspected the involvement of the affected realtors in Ganesan’s murder.
However, police investigation led to the arrest of the victim’s nephew and his friend.
The police initially suspected the involvement of realtors in Ganesan’s murder. But, the probe led to the arrest of the victim’s nephew and his friend
