A pall of gloom descended on the tribal villages of Kirankadu, Adiyanur and Keelavarai in Attur block, where the five persons, whose bodies were recovered from the Vontimitta lake near Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh, hailed from.
Heart-rending scenes were witnessed in these villages, situated on the Kalvarayan hills, as the grief-stricken relatives of the deceased wailed over the loss of their loved ones. The villagers insisted that the five victims were innocent, daily-wage labourers and not woodcutters, as had been suspected.
The deceased were identified as C. Murugesan, 42, of Adiyanur; C. Jayaraj, 25, A. Murugesan, 42, and A. Chinnapaiyan, 45, of Kirankadu; and P. Karuppannan, 23, of Keelavarai.
‘Unaware of plans’
Staving off tears, Unnamalai said her husband and four others left the village along with an agent 25 days ago. At the time, they had said they were planning to look for work in plantation estates and farms in Kerala and Karnataka. Their families were unaware of their plans to visit Andhra Pradesh. “We would have persuaded them not to go had we known earlier that they were being taken to Andhra Pradesh,” Unnamalai said.
Kannammal, wife of Chinnapaiyan, said she had been eagerly awaiting her husband’s return, as it had been a month since he left. “Before leaving, my husband told me that he was going to Mysore to work in the plantation estates there,” she said.
Kannammal said she worried how she would be able to raise her three young sons, aged seven, five and three, in the absence of the breadwinner of the family.
Meanwhile, the relatives of the victims left for Kadapa on Monday evening to receive the bodies, which have been kept in the Rajiv Gandhi Institute of Medical Science in the town.
A five-member police team led by R. Umashankar, inspector of police, Vazhappadi, are accompanying the families, sources said.
