TIRUCHY: Manachanallur police on Sunday arrested and remanded in judicial custody 14 people after a mob allegedly vandalised a youth’s mini-truck and one of them stabbed the latter’s elder brother the previous night.
According to the police, S Selvakumar (19) of Kalavaipatti in Manachanallur taluk drew a girl’s photo, who was his schoolmate, on the doors of his mini-truck. Following this, the girl’s family a week ago warned him against his actions. The girl’s parents had earlier demanded Selvakumar to remove the girl’s photo from his Facebook account which he had uploaded a month ago.
As Selvakumar refused to budge, the girl’s family in Thillampatti approached the Manachanallur police on Friday. The police then warned him to get rid of the girl’s photo and the drawing from both social media and his vehicle, to which Selvakumar agreed.
With the girl’s family noticing that Selvakumar neither removed the photo from his Facebook account nor from his vehicle, the girl’s parents and relatives as a group of around 100 gathered at Selvakumar’s house on Saturday night.
As Selvakumar gave no reply to their questions, the mob damaged his mini-truck that was parked outside. One of them in the group also stabbed Selvakumar’s elder brother S Gopi several times with a knife before leaving, sources said. Gopi was taken to the Mahatma Gandhi Memorial Government Hospital. Following the incident, around 20 police personnel were deployed near Selvakumar’s house to prevent further violence. Police booked 15 people under various sections of the IPC and arrested 14 of them.