Coimbatore: Youth electrocuted while climbing tree; six held

COIMBATORE: The Annur police on Monday arrested six men in connection with the death of a 22-year-old youth, who was electrocuted on a farmland at Kanjapalli last week.
According to a police officer, farmland owner A Durai, 59, of Panaimarathu Thottam near Kanjapalli, along with his five friends, had fastened live wires to coconut trees to prevent people from stealing toddy.
Durai, he said, claimed that the youth, identified as Sujith, of Ruthriyampalayam near Annur, was electrocuted when he was trying to steal toddy from a coconut tree. Police booked the six under sections 304 (ii) (culpable homicide not amounting to murder) and 201 of the Indian Penal Code.
Sujith’s wife Mahesh, in her complaint, said, “I last saw my husband on September 20. Three days later, we found his body near a dry stream at Kanjapalli. There were burn injuries on his body.”
She said her husband was a wall painter and addicted to alcohol. “He would often go to Kanjapalli along with his friends to consume liquor at night.”
After receiving the complaint on September 23, the Annur police registered a case under Section 174 (3) of CrPC (suspicious death) and formed a special team to investigate the case.
“A postmortem confirmed that the youth was electrocuted. Further inquiry revealed he visited the area to drink liquor. When we inspected the coconut farms in the area, we found evidence of electricity connections given to the trees on the farm owned by Durai. During interrogation, he confessed that the youth was electrocuted on his field and he along with his friends had disposed of the body and tried to destroy the evidence,” said police inspector M Nithya.
Durai was illegally tapping toddy and selling the same to his friends. “Some men in the area came to know about this and started stealing toddy from Durai’s farm. To teach them a lesson, Durai and his friends fastened the live wires to the trees,” the inspector said.
On Monday, police arrested Durai and his accomplices - V Nellikunjan, 45, G Gunasekaran, 49, K Palanisamy, 57, all of them farm owners from nearby villages, tractor driver D Venkitan and suspended TNEB line inspector, P Muthukumar, 50. Muthukumar was suspended last year for consuming alcohol during the office hours. They were produced before the Mettupalayam judicial magistrate and remanded in judicial custody the same night.