Four members of a family found charred to death inside haystack in Tamil Nadu

DINDIGUL: In a shocking incident, four members of a family were found charred to death in a haystack near their residence at Vatha Goundan Valasu village near Palani here on Saturday.

The four were identified as Chinnaraj alias Murugesan (52), his wife Valarmathi (45), daughter Sivaranjini (20) and son Karthikeyan (18).

Preliminary inquiries revealed that a few neighbours of Chinnaraj had alerted the fire and rescue service personnel about a fire in the locality at around 2 am. The firefighters engaged in the operation spotted four bodies inside the haystack and immediately alerted the police.

Inspector General of Police (south zone) TS Anbu, DIG of Police (Dindigul Range) B Vijayakumari and Superintendent of Police VR Srinivasan inspected the spot.

Addressing mediapersons, Srinivasan said the family members had been to a relative’s wedding in Velayuthampalayam Pudur on Friday night and returned home around 9 pm. “What happened between 9 pm and 2 am is yet to be known. We have to check their mobile phones. As of now, no motive has been found," he said.

The four bodies were later sent for post-mortem to Dindigul Government Hospital. The next course of investigation would only commence based on the postmortem findings, he said, in reply to queries if it was a case of suicide or murder.

A fingerprint expert visited the spot and sniffer dog Ruby was also deployed by the police.