Ramanathapuram: A tense situation built up as a huge crowd of villagers and mourners who assembled in the district headquarters hospital complex at Ramanathapuram town on Wednesday refused to accept the bodies of two youths who were brutally murdered near the DIG office adjacent to the court complex here on Tuesday evening. Police till late on Wednesday evening were trying to pacify the villagers to accept the bodies and disperse peacefully.
The protesting people, including relatives of the deceased of Valantharavai village in the district were demanding that until police arrested the “real culprits” behind the murder of the two youth- Karthi and Vicky,- they will not accept the bodies of the two deceased persons which were brought to the hospital for post-mortem.
Police said the two youth, Karthi and Vicky, accused in a murder case that took place at Valantharavai earlier this year in May, were out on conditional bail and had come to sign the register at the magistrate court in the sprawling district collectorate where the office of the DIG is also situated.
Even as the two were coming out after signing, some miscreants allegedly threw petrol bombs at them, severely restricting their movement. The two managed to move on with unsteady gait, but the miscreants pursued them and hacked Karthi and Vicky to death with sickles. Both collapsed on the spot and Kenikarai police who reached the spot retrieved the bodies and sent them for post-mortem at the government headquarters hospital here.
Police sounded an immediate alert to all the stations across the district in a bid to nab the miscreants who fled the spot.
Shortly later, a five-member gang travelling by a car -, their names were given as Murali, Bhaskaran, Arjun, Rueben and Murugesan-, were intercepted and arrested by police at Nainarkovil near Paramakudi, suspecting their involvement in the murder of the two youth.
The five arrested are being interrogated by the police, even as it is suspected that Karthi and Vicky had been done to death possibly in retaliation to the murder that took place at Valantharavai earlier. Police reinforcements have also been rushed to that village to ensure that the law and order situation does not get out of hand.
