COIMBATORE: The village in Kangeyampalayam, Sulur, where the house of 41-year-old K Rajendran is located is deserted. The house, much like the area where it sits looks abandoned to the elements and the vagaries of nature. An occasional motorcycle or car passes through, puncturing the eerie silence. Most of Rajendran’s neighbours have left for work, and the few who remain know very little about him, except that he was “not normal.”
A 62-year-old resident recalls instances when Rajendran would be exceptionally cordial to his neighbours, and would even be affectionate to some stray dogs in the area. “On the other hand, when his wife was still living with him, we could hear the two arguing,” the resident told Express. “Even after his parents moved in with him, we felt that they were also at the receiving end of some physical abuse,” he says almost as an afterthought.
Sulur police said that Rajendran’s parents, who also turned into his killers on Saturday morning, were handloom weavers and were living in Udumalaipettai. When they learned that Rajendran had been abandoned by his wife, they immediately moved in with him and into his house in Kangeyampalayam and tried their best to help him overcome his mental health issues.
Rajendran might have been suffering from bipolar disorder, said a clinical psychiatrist Express spoke to on Sunday. Residents said that he was often unpredictable and complex, an alcoholic and abusive husband as well as a loving father. “He was suffering from some mental issue. Residents say that he was psychotic, and would express extreme emotions, be it joy or anger,” a policeman told Express.
Though Sulur police did not press the elderly couple for details, they said that Rajendran’s parents, M Krishnasamy, 70, and K Mahalakshmi, 60, did not want to give up on their son, but had lost heart when all the treatments failed to result in any improvement.
The VAO, said that the couple approached him on Saturday morning and told him that they wanted to be taken to the Sulur Police Station. “When I asked them the reason, they told me that they had murdered their son. I did not ask anymore questions,” he said.