MADURAI: In a heartbreaking incident, a seven-year-old boy who had been missing from Thursday evening was found dead inside a parked SUV on Saturday night in S Melapatti village under Peraiyur police station limits.
Police ruled out any foul play in his death and said he had suffocated to death after getting trapped inside the car, his cries for help probably drowned out by the music from loudspeakers blaring in the village due to a temple festival.
The child was identified as R Shanmugavel of Nadukottai, a Class 1 student at a private school. He was visiting his grandmother in S Melapatti for the local temple festival along with his parents, Rajasekar (42) and Kavitha (30), and brother Rajavel (3), police said.
On Thursday (November 13), Shanmugavel had gone outside to play but did not return home that night. Police said the family initially assumed he would be somewhere nearby and didn’t search for him.
Doctor spotted boy’s body after removing car cover
However, when he did not return by Friday morning, they launched a search, before lodging a missing person complaint with the Peraiyur police.
Police told TNIE they suspected the boy might have gotten lost and launched a search operation. However, late on Saturday, Marimuthu, a doctor from Virudhunagar, who was also visiting the village for the festival, found the boy’s body in a decomposed state in his SUV, and alerted the police. Shanmugavel’s body was sent to the Government Rajaji Hospital for autopsy.
Madurai Superintendent of Police B K Aravind said the doctor had arrived in the village on Thursday morning and parked his vehicle near the child’s grandmother’s house. The next morning he put a car cover over it but did not notice anything amiss. It was only after he removed the cover on Saturday night, got inside and started the vehicle up, that he spotted the body inside, the SP said.
“The boy might have died due to suffocation. The boy’s fingerprints were found on the inside of the car windows, indicating that he tried to alert others. As per the initial autopsy results, there are no external injuries on the body,” he added.
Paraiyur police said that after the boy’s body was found, one of the children who was playing with him on Thursday evening told them that Shanmugavel was last spotted near the parked vehicle. With speakers all over the village blaring music due to the temple festival, the child’s cries for help might have been drowned out.
The boy’s body was handed over to his parents on Sunday.