Tribal youth shot dead in reserve forest; one suspect arrested

Coimbatore: A tribal youth who went to the reserve forest near Pillur for hunting hares along with his two friends on Saturday night was shot dead in the early hours of Sunday. While police secured one of the friends, they were not able to ascertain his or the other person's involvement in the crime, as he gave them contradictory statements. The Pillur Dam police identified the deceased as R Sanjith, 23, a daily wage labourer from Sorandi tribal settlement at Athikadavu in Pillur. According to an investigation officer, Sanjith had dinner with his friends K Praveen alias Murugesan, 37, of Kundoor, and Pappaiyan, 50, of Ansoor near Velliankadu at his house on Saturday night, before the trio left for hunting hares in the nearby reserve forest with a country-made gun."Around 8.30am on Sunday, Praveen contacted Sanjith's family over phone and told them that the youth suffered gunshot injuries in the reserve forest near the Bhavani river. Immediately, they rushed to the spot and found him dead with severe bleeding injuries on the left side of his abdomen and chest. However, Praveen and Pappaiyan were not in the area," the officer said.Sanjith's family members took the body home and alerted the Pillur Dam police, who held an inquiry with them and formed two special teams to nab Praveen and Pappaiyan. The officer said five bullet injuries were found on the body, which was sent to the govt hospital at Mettupalayam for postmortem. "We have arrested Praveen. When he caught him, he was too drunk to tell us what transpired between them in the reserve forest. And when he came to his senses, he started giving us contradictory statements. We could get a clear picture only if we nab Pappaiyan. We have registered a case and further investigation is on."