THOOTHUKUDI/TIRUNELVELI: A 33-year-old painter was beheaded at Manimutheeswaram village in Tirunelveli on Sunday allegedly for opposing a kabaddi tournament proposed by the villagers. Two people have been arrested after they surrendered before the Thachanallur police along with the weapons used for the gruesome crime.
The murdered man was Baskar, a resident of Manimutheeswaram village, said police.
Those arrested in the case, Manikandan (22) and Ponraj (20) of the same locality, had been in conflict with the Baskar, they added. On Sunday, when Baskar was in an inebriated condition, the duo attacked him with sharp weapons and beheaded him. The two discarded the head nearly 100 metre from the crime scene, said police.
The Thachanallur collected the head and the decapacitated body and sent them to the Tirunelveli medical college hospital for postmortem.
The motive of the crime was the animosity to Baskar. The villagers had identified a place for holding matches for the kabaddi tournament. Baskar allegedly opposed the choice of the site and this did not go down with other villagers.