THOOTHUKUDI: In a long running feud between the supporters of Venkatesh Pannaiyar, who was shot dead in a police encounter in Chennai in 2003, and slain Dalit leader Pasupathi Pandian, the latter’s men hurled country bombs targeting the former’s brother Subash Pannaiyar and his accomplices at his coconut farm in Sarvodayapuram near Palayakayal in the district on Tuesday.
Two persons – Subash Pannaiyar’s aide Arumugasamy and a barber, whose name was given as Kannan – were hacked to death thereafter by the gang. Subash Pannaiyar, President of the All India Nadar Padhukaappu Peravai, managed to escape the bomb attack with minor injuries, while Arumugasamy was singled out and murdered. They both were accused in the Pasupathi Pandian murder case and were out on bail.
According to eyewitnesses, the incident happened around 12.45 pm when a gang of 20 men whizzed past on two SUVs and high-speed bikes to the farm and hurled country bombs, scaring away the workers in the farm. Pannaiyar, who is said to have suffered minor injuries in the attack, was immediately escorted to safety by his supporters. Even as Arumugasamy was trying to take on the gang to protect his master, the gangsters picked him up, dragged him a few feet and attacked him with deadly weapons right inside Pannaiyar’s farm, police said, adding that barber Kannan, who was mistaken for Pannaiyar’s aide, was also hacked to death.
The gang, police said, severed Arumugasamy’s head, carried it with them and left it beside a board carrying Pandian’s portrait at Deivaseyalpuram en route Tirunelveli. Police recovered his torso and Kannan’s body, lying in a pool of blood at the farm, and, later, the severed head of Arumugasamy, and sent them to Thoothukudi Government Hospital for postmortem. Tirunelveli Range DIG R Dinakaran and Thoothukudi Superintendent of Police M Ashwin Kotnis inspected the scene of crime. Later, police arrested Kathiresan, one of the car drivers, at Seevalaperi.
A police source said that Pasupathi Pandian’s aides had vowed at their leader’s cemetery on his death anniversary to eliminate all those who had involved in murdering him before next January. Pandian, founder of the Federation of Devendrakula Vellalars, was murdered outside his house in the outskirts of Dindigul on January 10, 2012.
Charged with criminal conspiracy, Subash Pannaiyar was named as the prime accused in the case, while Arumugasamy was the second accused, who is said to have executed the murder.