VIRUDHUNAGAR: A 26-year-old man was brutally murdered by a gang in Sivakasi on Wednesday night.
The victim has been identified as M Karthik Pandiyan (26).
Police arrested the victim's brothers-in-law P Dhanabala (26), P Balamurugan (27) and S Siva (23) in connection with the murder.
Sources said that Karthik Pandiyan and Nandhini Kumari (22) fell in love with each other and got married eight months ago.
Karthik Pandiyan was working in a workshop in Sivakasi while Nandhini was employed in a supermarket there.
On Wednesday night, as usual, Karthik went to the supermarket in a motorcycle to take Nandhini home. At that time, Nandhini's brothers and their aide Siva arrived in a motorcycle armed with lethal weapons. They waylaid Karthik. Upon seeing them, the young couple tried to escape from the place. However, the assailants attacked Karthik Pandiyan leaving him unconscious in a pool of blood. Though he was rushed to the government medical college hospital in Virudhunagar, he was declared brought dead by the doctors there.
Though the police DSR mentioned that Nandhini and her husband belonged to different communities, Virudhunagar district, Superintendent of Police K Feroze Khan Abdullah in his statement on Thursday denied that it was a case of "honour killing." He said that Nandhini's brothers did not like her marrying Karthik Pandiyan and plotted to murder him.