THOOTHUKUDI: Family members of the 17-year-old girl who was found dead in bushes near a village in Kulathur refused to receive her body for the third consecutive day on Friday, insisting that they would do so only after the culprits are arrested.
Tirunelveli Range DIG P Saravanan has formed 10 special teams to trace the suspects. “We are interrogating nearly a dozen persons, including one of the girl’s classmates. No suspect has been confirmed yet,” a senior police officer told TNIE.
“As per the postmortem report, the girl was strangled to death and her collarbone was broken. We are awaiting test results to ascertain if she was sexually assaulted,” the officer added.
On Friday, several political leaders, including Thoothukudi MP Kanimozhi and TVK leader Aadhav Arjuna, visited the girl’s family and offered condolences.
Speaking to reporters, Kanimozhi said the murder was condemnable. “The postmortem report is yet to come. We cannot predict what sort of crime it is. Police are investigating the case seriously, and the culprit will be arrested soon,” she said.
However, several villagers, including women, questioned Kanimozhi over the delayed visit and asked why the culprits had not been arrested yet.
When Aadhav Arjuna met the family, the girl’s relatives told him that they did not want politicians to visit them. “We have not recovered from the incident. We only want justice, and this is not the place for politics,” they said.