Kin demands autopsy after missing dalit youth found dead

According to K Murugan, a resident of Kulithalai, his youngest son Rajendran, an agricultural coolie went along with one Sukkan for a peace talk with his neighbor Viji alias Vijayasekar on July 21 at around 9.30 am. After pacifying both Sukkan and Vijayasekar, Rajendran came home at around 11.30 am and later around 3 pm, Rajendran went out after receiving a call from Senthil Kumar for a party.

Murugan allegedly said, Rajendran consumed alcohol with Senthil and Vijayasekar and another person Ramamurthy. It is learnt that there was an altercation among the friends and so, Senthil Kumar, Vijayasekar and Ramamurthy had reportedly assaulted Rajendran, who sustained severe injuries and died on the spot. After realizing that Rajendran had died, the three had abandoned the body in a canal and left the place, Murugan explained. On the next day (July 22), police found the body of Rajendran at Pettavaithalai in Tiruchy and Murugan identified the body on July 23. The cops registered a case of suspicious death.

However, Murugan claimed that the body had several cut injuries and suspected that he was murdered by the three persons and so he demanded case of murder. The autopsy procedures was delayed as the police failed to register the case of murder (IPC 302) instead of suspicious death (IPC 174).

Since the jurisdiction issue, the police from Tiruchy and Karur failed to register a case and the body has been kept in the GH for the past four days.

Later, Murugan along with his advocate Alex approached the DIG Z Annie Vijaya and submitted a petition to instruct the police to register a case which would pave way for postmortem after which the final rites can be performed.