Two arrested for killing ragpicker

Coimbatore: Police arrested two youths on Friday for murdering a 49-year-old man on the premises of a primary health centre (PHC) at Ganesh Layout in Ganapathy earlier in the day.
The Saravanampatti police booked P Mohanraj, 26, from Nanjundapuram in the city, and I Saravanan, 19, from Kotagiri in the Nilgiris district, under Section 302 of the Indian Penal Code.
The deceased, C Venkatesh, from Ponnaiyan Street at Ganapathy, was a rag picker.
“The arrested youths were also rag pickers. The three men used to sleep on a platform near the PHC at Raja Street. On Thursday night, the youths were drinking alcohol at the PHC, which did not have any compound walls. Venkatesh was there. They demanded beedi from him and when he refused to give them, they assaulted him with a stone,” a police officer said.
On Friday, the body was found by conservancy worker K Sekar, 31, from Kamarajapuram. Immediately, he informed police, who came to the spot and sent the dead body to Coimbatore Medical College Hospital for postmortem.
During inquiry, police came to know that Mohanraj and Saravanan were the culprits and arrested them on the same day.