Villagers mistake 65-year-old woman for child lifter, beat her to death

Tiruvannamalai: A 65-year-old woman, who was

mistaken

for child lifter, was beaten to death by a group of

villagers

at Thambikottan Paarai in Tiruvannamalai on Wednesday. Four others were also attacked along with her. They sustained grievous injuries. Two of the injured were battling for their lives.

The deceased was identified as Rukhmani, a native of Pallavaram in Chennai. Rukhmani and four of her relatives – S Mohankumar, 45, M Chandrasekaran, 33, who is settled in Malaysia, K Venkatesan, 52, and car driver R Gajendran of Old Pallavaram – had come to their family

temple

in Thambikottan Paarai village from Chennai. However, the villagers mistook them for a gang involved in human trafficking and they attacked them. The incident took place around 11am at Athimur village.

On being informed, police rushed to the spot and rescued them. All the five injured were rushed to a hospital in Athimur village where doctors declared Rukhmani dead on arrival.

Chandrasekar and Gajendran were referred to Government Vellore Medical College Hospital where they were battling for their lives, while the other two were admitted to Government Medical College Hospital in Tiruvannamalai. Sources said the victims were natives of Sathanur in Tiruvannamalai district. While a few of their family members were settled in Malaysia, others were settled in Chennai.

“They reached Sathanur on Tuesday evening and stayed in one of their relatives’ house. From there, they hit the road to the temple today (Wednesday morning). The villagers beat them up for over an hour from around 10.30am,” said police quoting Venkatesan, one of the victims.

A preliminary inquiry report, which was submitted by Polur tahsildar M Thiyagarajan, stated that the five had come in a car and wanted to visit Muthumariamman temple in Kaliyam village. They stopped the car and enquired with an elderly woman, who was sitting with her grandchildren, about the temple. In the meantime, Rukhmani struck up a conversation with the children and gave them chocolates.

Suspecting that they were a gang involved in child trafficking, the elderly raised an alarm. A group of villagers gheraoed the car and started attacking.

However, they managed to escape the wrath of villagers. But, the children’s father, Siva, a photographer, telephoned his friends in Athimur, as the car was moving towards Athimur, and told them that a gang had tried to kidnap his daughters. Villagers gathered in large numbers and started pelting the car with stones. They pulled the occupants out of the car and beat them up. The police picked up 33 men and 10 women, all natives of Athimur village, for inquiry.

Rukhmani was the aunt of Mohankumar and Chandrasekaran.

Tiruvannamalai superintendent R Ponni said a detailed inquiry was going on.