Villagers block NH after 6-year-old boy was found murdered

Vehicular traffic along the Thoothukudi – Madurai national highway was hit for nearly two hours after the relatives of a 6-year-old boy who was found murdered blocked the road at Muthalaapuram on Tuesday. Police said N. Nagulan, a class 1 student from Muthalaapuram near Ettaiyapuram, went missing on Monday evening.

His father Jaishankar, a labourer, filed a complaint with the Ettaiyapuram police the same night. The police nabbed S. Arulraj, 26, of the same area around midnight on suspicion.

Arulraj, who was under the influence of alcohol, reportedly told the police that he had murdered Nagulan. However, he could not tell the place where he had dumped the body.

As the police could not trace the body immediately, the agitated relativesblocked the NH for around two hours on Tuesday.

Even though Superintendent of Police Arun Balagopalan held talks with the protestors, they made it clear that they would give-up the agitation only if the body was retrieved.

Police found Nagulan’s body lying near the irrigation tank on Muthalaapuram outskirts and sent it to Tirunelveli Medical College Hospital for a post-mortem without showing the body to the parents, which triggered unrest among the agitators again. The agitation was finally withdrawn around 11.45 a.m. after the body was brought to the protest venue in an ambulance. The Ettaiyapuram police have detained Arulraj, who is already facing a murder case.