Youth hacked to death for damaging wedding banner

A 23-year-old youth, who created nuisance at a wedding venue in Mylapore on Sunday night, was hacked to death by a group of persons. While four persons were taken into custody, investigation is also on to determine if there were other reasons behind the murder.

The deceased was identified as M Vijay of Nochi Nagar in Mylapore, who has been helping his brother in photography assignments. On Sunday evening, Vijay attended a wedding near Santhome Church, where a quarrel erupted between him and a group of friends after which they allegedly threw a wet sponge on him.

Infuriated over this, Vijay went home and returned to the wedding venue with a machete, said the police. Seeing him coming to the wedding venue with a deadly weapon, the guests there chased him out of the place. However, instead of leaving the spot, Vijay started tearing the banners erected outside the venue, said a police officer. Following this, added the officer, a group of four men chased Vijay and hacked him to death.

On receiving information, the Mylapore police rushed to the spot, recovered his body and sent it to Government Royapettah Hospital for post-mortem examination.

A case was registered and four suspects, Ulaganathan, Jayakumar, Ashok and Manikandan, all of them hailing from the same locality, were secured. After interrogation, they were remanded in judicial custody. 

Though police said that the murder was a fallout of a sudden provocation, further inquiry is on whether there was any previous enmity between Vijay and the accused persons.