Son kills father in haste over land row in Salem

SALEM: In a tragic development, a 55-year-old man killed his octogenarian father by striking him with a shovel ('manvetti' in Tamil) at the latter's house at Vaikuntham Velliyampalayam near Sankagiri in Salem district late on Saturday night over a land row and then surrendered to the police.

Police said on Sunday that 81-year-old Chinna Pazhani, a farmer and affectionate father-figure in the family, had two years ago partitioned his nearly three acres of agriculture land in the village equally between his two sons, Duraiswamy, 58, and Subramani, 55, and himself and all the three were taking care of the land.

Meanwhile, some time back, both the sons in front of the village elders sought to make a new deal, saying they would each pay Rs 1.5 lakh to their father, following which Chinna Pazhani should transfer their individual share of the land onto their respective names.

This created some disharmony in the family, but as Duraiswamy paid the amount, Chinna Pazhani kept his word and transferred his elder son's share of the land to Selvam, son of Duraiswamy.

After this name transfer was effected, Duraiswamy, unfortunately, died ten months back.

Subsequently, the old farmer's second son, Subramani, kept pestering his father to transfer his share of the agriculture land onto his name though he did not pay for it as agreed before the village elders.

This led to frequent quarrels between the elderly father and his second son, which took an ominous turn on Saturday night when Subramani went to his house and fatally smashed him with a shovel.

Poor Chinna Pazhani died on the spot and a panic-stricken Subramani seeing his father collapse rushed to Sankagiri police station last night and
surrendered.

The cops there rushed to the incident spot, retrieved Chinna Pazhani's body and sent it to Salem government hospital for post-mortem.

They also arrested Subramani for patricide and investigations are on. The incident has sent shock waves here.