Sagayam had ordered digging of sites on the banks of the Manimutharu
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Chennai: The advocate commissioner U. Sagayam, IAS, who is probing into the alleged granite quarry scam, unearthed skeletons on Sunday of four persons including that of a small baby suspected to be victims ofhuman sacrifice by a quarry owner in E. Malampatti near Melur in Madurai.
Sagayam had ordered digging of sites on the banks of the Manimutharu based on a complaint by one Prabhu alias Sevarkodiyan, saying that mentally challenged persons had been sacrificed as part of suspectedNarabali pooja in one of the granite quarries owned by PRP group back in 1999.
“The mortal remains had been handed over to the forensic department of Madurai medical college. We still don’t know the identities of the victims or if they were Narabali victims. It will take some time for us to get a detailed forensic report. Only after getting the report we can decide the next possible course of action,” said a member of Sagayam’s probe team over the phone when this newspaper contacted him.
Sagayam and his team kept vigil through Saturdaynight at the site, which is also a burial ghat of a particular community. They were there until workers started digging out bones on Sunday morning and came up with the skeletons. By afternoon the workers had dug up skulls.
In the complaint given by Prabhu, a driver who worked for the quarry firm, it was alleged that he had seen at least two bodies of unknown people being buried by one Ayyappan, also an employee of the same firm. Prabhu also alleged that Ayyappan used to bring mentally challenged abandoned people from various parts of the state saying that his employer like to give shelter to such people. Prabhu in his complaint suggested that such people were being used by the quarry owner for human sacrifice.
Keezhavalvu police said that they have registered a case under CrPC 174 (unnatural death) and IPC 201 (causing disappearance of evidence) after parts of human bodies were exhumed from the site. However, lawyers of PRP group said that if one digs in a burial ghat one would get only bodies. The PRP legal team said that the complainant knew very well that the area is burial ghat and the narabali angle was given by him to tarnish the image of the granite firm. The lawyers alleged that the exhumation being done just a few days before the next hearing in the HC was only to buy more time.
( Source : deccan chronicle )
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