Tirunelveli tense after Dalit DYFI cadre’s murder

The incident took place near Kombu Madasamy Kovil bus stop around 10.45 pm while the victim, M Ashok of Karaiyiruppu, was returning home after work in a tyre manufacturing unit at Gangaikondan Industrial Promotion Centre.

Sources said that a seven-member armed gang attacked Ashok, who was walking towards his house after alighting from the bus, with sickles and killed him on the spot. Later the gang carried his body and disposed it near a railway track in area to make it look like a suicide.

Police suspect that Ashok could have been murdered due to previous enmitywith Pechiraja of the same locality.

Trouble started when Ashok, along with his mother, was carrying dried straw on his bike through Pechiraja’s farmland nearly a week ago. They accidentally hit Pechiraja and it triggered an altercation between them. They exchanged blows and Ashok’s mother was also attacked in the incident. The police had filed a case against both of them in this regard, said sources.

Soon after the murder, cadre of Left parties along with relatives of Ashok to a road-roko on the busy Tirunelveli-Madurai Highway near Thatchanallur demanding immediate arrest of the assailants. They also prevented the police from removing the body to the government hospital for an autopsy.

As tension mounted, Tirunelveli Commissioner of Police N Bhaskaran along with senior revenue officials reached the spot and held talks to pacify the agitators.

After a couple of hours, the protesters withdrew the road blockade after which the body was sent to Tirunelveli government hospital. However, the victim’s relatives refused to receive the body till evening, demanding arrested of the killers.

Reacting to the incident, K Balakrishnan, CPM state secretary, said that there was no safety for Dalits in the state. It was unfortunate that Ashok, who earlier spearheaded several protests for the welfare of people, irrespective of caste and religion, was murdered by some anti-social elements. He also alleged that the police were lethargic as not a single person had been arrested in connection with the murder.