TIRUNELVELI: Members of an intermediate caste have allegedly murdered three persons belonging to Dalit community in a dispute over the route to the graveyard near Sankarankoil in Tirunelveli on Sunday.
Sources said, K Murugan (40) and R Venugopalan (42), natives of Udappankulam are working as drivers in Coimbatore. On Sunday, they came to Sankarankoil to attend a family function at Malaiyur.
After the ceremony, they went to meet Murugan’s elder brother, Kaliraj at Udappankulam. Later, Kaliraj went to drop the duo, in his two wheeler, at Sankarankoil. However, the trio was attacked by some miscreants at a distance of two kilometre from Udappankulam. They died on the spot.
There was enmity between the Dalit community and a dominant intermediate caste regarding the route to the graveyard. The Dalits were denied the rights of taking their dead ones through the main street, where the intermediate caste lives. Instead, they were taking the dead bodies through another route, sources said. On information, Tirunelveli SP Narendran Nair, Madurai DIG Anandkumar Somale, DSPs Vanamamalai, Kalivarathan, Pichai, and Tiruvengadam police inspector Krishnasamy rushed to the spot to control the situation. More than 100 police were deployed in this regard.
The dead bodies were sent to Tirunelveli Medical college Hospital for postmortem.
Tiruvengadam police registered a case and are investigating.