Boy drowned by kin over dad’s loan dues

KANYAKUMARI: A four-year-old boy, son of a fisherman in Kanyakumari, was kidnapped and murdered by a distant relative for not repaying the loan the boy’s father had taken a few months ago. A Raina who went missing on Sunday was found dead in a concrete water tank on a farm land on Monday.

While the body has been shifted to Asaripallam medical college hospital for autopsy, the accused, Anthonysamy, was arrested on Monday. It is suspected that the boy was drowned to death. Kanyakumari police have registered a case. According to the police, Raina’s father Arockiya Kebinraj, 36, from Arockiyapuram village, had borrowed Rs 1 lakh from Anthonysamy to meet his family expenses a few months ago. He had repaid up to Rs 42,000 in principal apart from the interest. Recently, a dispute broke out between Arockiya Kebinraj’s family and the accused and they had quarrelled a few times.

It was in this backdrop that Raina, who was playing near his house, went missing on Sunday. Raina’s parents who launched a hunt for the boy were told by the villagers that they saw Anthonysamy, a distant relative, carrying him on his bike. Arockiya Kebindraj and his wife Sahaya Sindhuja immediately approached the local police, who launched a manhunt for the accused.

On Monday morning, the police got an alert from villagers about the body of a boy lying in a coconut grove in Mugilan Kudiyiruppu. The police rushed to the spot and confirmed that the body was Raina’s following which his family members were alerted. The police traced Anthonysamy, who was hiding in Kerala, by following his mobile phone signal. Though the police initially registered a case under 306 IPC (kidnap), they were in the process of altering the FIR to add section 302 IPC (punishment for murder).