Man buries cousin’s wife alive near Dharmapuri

DHARMAPURI: A man buried alive his cousin’s wife, with whom he had an illicit affair, near Indur in Dharmapuri district on Saturday. Police said the man, K Anumanthan, 41, of O G Alli village, used an earthmover to bury the woman, identified as Rajeshwari, 34, of the same village. Police recovered the body and arrested the man. Police said Rajeshwari was the wife of Anumanthan's uncle’s son S Prabhu, 37. Rajeshwari and Prabhu have a son and a daughter. Prabhu worked as a building contractor in Bengaluru and visited his house twice a month. The couple lived near Anumanthan’s house. Anumanthan, a tractor driver, is married and has two children.Indur police inspector Logeswaran said Rajeshwari and Anumanthan had been in an illicit relationship for the past two years. “On Saturday afternoon, Rajeshwari called Anumanthan on his mobile phone and told him that her husband would be coming from Bangalore on Saturday night. She wanted him to meet her at her home. Anumanthan told her that he was busy preparing the ground for a cricket match and could not meet her. Rajeshwari went to that place where Anumanthan was working.An argument broke out between them. Anumanthan slapped on Rajeshwari’s face. Rajeshwari tore Anumanthan’s shirt. Anumanthan allegedly took a brick and hit Rajeshwari with it. When she fell unconscious, he put her into a pit. He used soil on his tractor to bury her. He then brought two more loads of soil, dumped it in the pit and then used an earthmover to level it. Some people who were grazing goats in the area saw this. They alerted the Indur police who reached the spot, recovered the body and sent it for postmortem.Later, Anumanthan surrendered before the police who registered a case and arrested him.