Mob attack: One more dead

Yuvaraj, a local fisherman, told DTNext that his neighbours heard a noise from the bridge and after reaching the place, found a man hanging. Only after he was lifted, did they realise it was the mentally unstable man who always loitered in the village. He says others who did not know him might have mistaken him for a child-lifter and killed him.

In another incident, a possible lynching in the city was averted by police on Thursday when they rescued a man of North Indian origin from a mob after he jumped over a wall to enter an apartment complex in Nanganallur. Though the identity of the deceased in the Ponneri incident is not known, he has reportedly been seen in the locality several times and is suspected to be mentally unstable.

Police suspect that some locals might have got into a fight with him and beat him to death. To escape from the law, they might have hanged him from the flyover to make it look like a suicide.

The Nanganallur incident happened at Ramji Apartment. At 7.30 pm, residents found a man aged about 25, sneaking into the compound and got hold of him. As he was unable to answer questions, he was beaten up. A police team from Pazhavanthangal station took custody of the youth. “He looked like he was mentally unstable and started switching off all lights after entering the station,” a police officer said.