Speaker’s car driver stabs woman after argument over fetching water

The car driver of Tamil Nadu Assembly Speaker P Dhanapal was arrested for attacking the woman following the quarrel on Thursday, police said.

The woman was identified as Subashini who had six stitches on her right jaw after being attacked with a knife. The arrested car driver Ayyappan Adimula Krishnan (36) from Amaresan Nagar from Anakaputhur is a secretariat staff. Police booked a case under IPC 324 (voluntarily causing hurt by dangerous weapons) and released him on personal bail on Friday morning.

The root of the dispute was the severe water scarcity that the people in the southern suburbs of the city have been facing this summer. With almost all their water sources drying up, and even efforts to dig borewells becoming futile due to depletion of groundwater table, the people here have been forced to buy water from private water tanker operators and store it in the sumps.

Police said trouble started when Mohan (30), a software engineer staying on the first floor of the Paadhuka apartment, tried to fill the tank in his house by pumping water from the sump in the ground floor. Noticing this, Ayyappan picked up a quarrel with Mohan, charging him of consuming more water. The fight soon turned physical, and Ayyappan slapped the other man.

Mohan’s wife Subashini who saw this came in his supported and argued with Ayyappan. When the latter allegedly threatened the couple, she grabbed his shirt and reportedly told him to do whatever he could.

Furious over this, Ayyappan ran back to his house and returned with a knife and attacked Subashini. Hearing her cries, the neighbours came to her aide and rushed her to a private hospital nearby. Based on Mohan’s complaint, Shankar Nagar police registered a case and arrested Ayyappan, who was later released on bail.