KARUR: It was raining heavily when Ramesh’s body was brought to the banks of Amaravathi River for funeral. Most residents of Kanakupillayar Temple Street were present to bid final goodbyes. For, it was them who raised Ramesh since he was a little one, abandoned on the roadside. Ramesh was shot dead on Thursday, by men who came on a bike. By the time the residents spilled out on to the streets, Ramesh was lying in a pool of blood.
“It was us who named him Ramesh,” says N Gunasekaran, a resident of the Kanakupillayar Temple Street in Vengamedu. “We took him in, fed him, played with him... He was a part of our family, our lives. Our children loved him too. Over a hundred families in our street never thought of spending a penny on installing security cameras, or depending on the police. We had Ramesh around. He knew each one of us who lived here, and who didn’t.”
His body wrapped in a blanket, the street residents carried Ramesh in their arms and staged a protest on the Vengamedu Main Road. They wanted his killers to be arrested, immediately. “Those murderers need to be caught and punished strictly,” says Gunasekaran. The protesting families refused to bury Ramesh till his killers were identified and brought to justice. The police did just that. They conducted a swift probe and nabbed the culprits.
Investigation revealed the role of 40-year-old G Balasubramaniyan alias Balu, who also lived in Vengamedu. Balu claimed Ramesh had tried to hurt him, following which he took the help of T Ramesh of Narikuravar Colony and Velusamy a supervisor at Karur Municipality, in eliminating Ramesh. They came on a bike and shot him down using a single-barrel muzzle-loading gun. The trio has been booked under the Arms Act among other relevant provisions.
As the villagers were protesting for justice on Thursday, Ramesh’s body was kept in a freezer box in Vengamedu police station. It was handed over to the residents after the completion of formalities on Friday. “Culprits have been arrested, but it does not change the fact that our guardian angel is gone,” says Gunasekaran. “To hundreds of families living in this street, Ramesh was like a child, not just a dog.”