Within 24 hours, special teams secured six persons who were involved in the grave crime of killing a family of six persons, including four children and a woman, by torching their hut on Sunday late night at Thoppu Valasai in Uchipuli police station limits.
Addressing a press conference, Deputy Inspector General of Police (Ramanathapuram Range) M. Ramasubramani said that when the incident came to light on Monday morning, special teams comprising Rameswaram Deputy Superintendent of Police Manivannan and Inspectors of Police Jayachandran, Shanmugam, Kannan, Ganesan, and Lamech were formed.
As the family members were burnt to death while they were all fast asleep, the police teams were initially clueless on the reason behind such a gory crime. Discreet probe by the teams suggested that a land dispute was there between the victims and some persons known to them. Specific clues were gathered and with the aid of scientific experts the accused were zeroed-in by the teams.
Explaining the case, Mr. Ramasubramani said that the land in which the deceased persons lived belonged to a person in Keelakarai. A watchman, Velusamy of Thoppu Valasai, was looking after the property for the past many years and his son Kallazhagar was looking after the land. He had in the due process put up a small hut on the site and lived there with his family members.
Last year, when Kallazhagar had left the country to work as a labourer in the middle east, his wife Kalimuthu (30) lived in the hut with her four children — Kaliswari (12), Balamurugan (8), Saranya (5), and Sakthi (1) and her father Karuppiah, aged about 50 years.
In the meantime, a realtor, Louis Raj of Ramanathapuram Singara Thoppu, had laid house site plots with Sujakani, also from Ramanathapuram. The piece of land in which Kallazhagar’s family resided was reportedly bought by Panchatcharam of Enmanamkondan from the realtor. However, Kallazhagar’s wife Kalimuthu insisted that the land belonged to them and refused to vacate it.
Under such circumstances, in a bid to eliminate the family, the land brokers had planned to torch the hut on late Sunday night and executed it under the cover of darkness.
The police gave the names of the arrested as Muniandi, Mangalanathan, Louis Raj, Panchatcharam, Sujakani, and Kalimuthan. Based on their confessions, the police registered cases under IPC Sections 302, 120 (b) among others. Further investigation is on.
