COIMBATORE: Following the murder of an elderly couple living alone in a farmhouse in Erode district recently, the state police department has increased the patrolling units along irrigation canals, as suspects are believed to be using such channels passing through farmland to reach their target.
Covering the districts of Tiruppur, Erode, and Coimbatore, which rely on major irrigation projects such as the Parambikulam Aliyar Project (PAP), Lower Bhavani Project (LBP), and Noyyal River irrigation channels, the police have increased their canal-based patrolling units from 39 to 82.
Due to the high number of isolated farmhouses in these western districts and purportedly similar methods (intruding into their target house using the canal route) deployed in previous crimes, the police are zeroing in on the rural areas of Erode, Tiruppur, and Coimbatore, all of which fall under the Coimbatore Range in the West Zone.
“A number of farmlands are linked to these three major irrigation projects, and the water distribution canals passing through them could have been used by the burglars to reach their target. To address this, we had initiated canal-based beat patrolling in Erode and Tiruppur districts four months ago and established teams in Coimbatore as preventive measures.
The patrol teams concentrate on routes along the irrigation networks. Following the recent double murder in Erode, we have doubled the personnel in these patrol teams,” said a senior police officer from the range.
According to police sources, Tiruppur district, which has approximately 80 km of irrigation network, has seen its beat patrolling units grow from 23 to 35.
Similarly, Erode district which previously had 11 beats, covering 50 km of water irrigation routes, has increased this number to 22. In the Coimbatore district, the number of teams has risen from five to 15 as it covers around 30 km of canals under PAP.
All routing was established with the support of the water resources department, which manages these irrigation canals. Each patrol unit consists of two police officers, one of them is armed.
An additional 300 police officers from Coimbatore and Salem ranges have been brought to Tiruppur and Erode for patrolling duties.
The patrolling officers are visiting each farmhouse personally to enumerate safety measures. They are checking for the presence of pet dogs, CCTV surveillance, alarm systems, network coverage, access routes, and the number of residents.
They also evaluate whether there are any elderly residents, the distance of the farmhouses from nearby villages, and whether the villages have CCTV cameras in place. This information is being compiled, and the locations will be tagged on Google Maps, the police sources said.
Additionally, officers are advising residents of the villages to create WhatsApp groups and use the police application ‘Kaval Udhavi’ for emergency alerts, allowing them to inform local villagers and police during exigencies. They are also recommending that residents install CCTV cameras in their individual farmhouses and along roads leading to each village to monitor any suspicious activities.
The cops are encouraging people in the surrounding Erode district to share any information they might have about the burglars, according to police.
R Ramasamy and Bhagyalakshmi, an elderly couple who lived alone in a farmhouse in Vijayanagaram village near Sivagiri, were reportedly beaten to death by unidentified culprits a few days ago and around 10 sovereigns of gold jewels were looted from the scene.
