DHARMAPURI: Six people including a government school teacher were arrested for abducting a private school correspondent near Pappireddipatti over a financial dispute on Tuesday night.
The suspects were identified as A Iniyavan (41), a teacher at Panchayat Union Middle School, Pereri Pudhur, residing near Pappireddipatti, M Theerthagiri (45), C Ambethkumar (41), K Manojkumar (29) and A Suresh (29) of Marukalamapatti and Yasendiran of Mookareddipatti.
Police said Iniyavan, a government school teacher, had taken a lease of a private school run by S Semmuni (68) of Gopalapuram near Harur in 2023 on his mother Amirthavalli’s name and he had given `15 lakh. Apart from this Iniyavan spent money for administration. The school has the strength of 110 students.
But Semmuni did not renew the licence and allegedly planned to sell the land. Also, Semmuni informed the school education department officials to close the school because he was unable to run the school.
Iniyavan came to know about the issue last week and contacted Semmuni to register the school land in his name or return the amount he spent. Semmuni agreed to register the land and the issue was in discussion.
Last month, Iniyavan’s mother Amirthavalli lodged a police complaint at A Pallipatti police station that Semmuni did not return money and failed to renew the school .
On Tuesday morning Semmuni went to Sai Baba temple at Pappireddipatti and he was in interaction with his friend P Panneerselvam (64), who is a trustee of the temple. At the time, around 11. 30 am, four members came in a car and interacted with Semmuni and then three more members came and abducted Semmuni.
Panneerselvam informed the matter to Pappireddipatti police, who nabbed the accused around evening and rescued Semmuni. Based on the complaint from Panneerselvam, police booked six persons under sections 191 (2), 126 (2), 115, 140 (2) of the BNS Act and remanded them to prison.