COIMBATORE: District and city police squabbled over jurisdiction to investigate the death of CCMC ward 56 councillor M Krishnamoorthy of the Congress, who died allegedly after falling from a bridge on the banks of Noyyal river at Pattanam on Wednesday night.
Neither city nor rural police took up the case saying the crime scene was not in their jurisdiction. The Superintendent of Police intervened on Thursday morning and told Sulur police to book a case and start an initial investigation to complete medicolegal procedures.
Krishnamoorthy, a resident of Ondipudur in the city was the vice-president of TNCC’s agriculture wing. According to police, around 9 pm on Wednesday, he was travelling in a car with two friends on the bridge connecting Ondipudur with L&T Bypass Road.
He got down at the end of the bridge to attend nature’s call but allegedly slipped after stepping on a plastic cover and fell 30 feet. He was taken to a private hospital nearby but was declared dead. Based on the information, police shifted the body to the ESI hospital for post-mortem examination. Police suspect Krishnamoorthy was under the influence of alcohol. They are investigating his friends.
Sources in Coimbatore District (Rural) police said the FIR has been booked under section 194 of the BNSS Act on Thursday by Sulur police to enable medico-legal procedures and that the case would be transferred to Singanallur police for investigation.
The DSP of Karumathampatti Sub-Division P Thangaraman on Thursday visited the crime scene to check the jurisdiction limit. “We inspected the crime scene, but there is no clarity on its jurisdiction. We have sought help from the revenue department as they have records of the village boundaries, through which we can get clarity.
We registered the FIR at Sulur station for the time being. At the crime scene, there are no suspicious factors triggering the accident. The post-mortem report and the further investigation would help us to get more clarity,” he said.
Sources said Krishnamoorthy was booked by city police after an altercation broke out between two groups of TNCC cadres in the Coimbatore airport recently.