The Hindu : Tamil Nadu News : Thirukkurunkudi death probe surprising

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, Feb 08, 2005

Tamil Nadu

Tamil Nadu

Thirukkurunkudi death probe surprising

By P. Sudhakar

TIRUNELVELI, FEB. 7. There is a sense of fear and an element of surprise here that a third round of enquiry has begun into the death of accountant Murugesan of the Thirukkurunkudi Azhagiya Nambirayar temple.

Preliminary investigation indicated the possibility of a suicide and his family tended to believe it.

Now the investigation has been taken over by the Special Investigation Team (SIT), probing the Sankararaman murder case, which has started summoning a number of people to Kancheepuram.

Police sources here say it was perhaps the timing of Murugesan's death that led to its being clubbed with the Thirukottiyur Madhavan assault case, which in turn is being linked to the Sankararaman murder case.

Hard-pressed for money

Sources close to Murugesan's family said the former Fisheries department employee was running from pillar to post to mobilise resources for the marriage of his daughter, Jayalakshmi. The amount he borrowed from some moneylenders of Thirukkurunkudi was not enough. "Though he had fixed the betrothal for January 13, he could not muster enough funds since he had already got some thousands from the local moneylenders. When he met his friends at Nagercoil on January 12 for help, they let him down. This might have forced him to take the extreme step," said a person close to Murugesan.

Temple sources confirmed that Murugesan, extremely upset, was badly in need of financial assistance for the marriage and to repay the principal and interest for the money he had borrowed from the moneylenders, who were threatening him.

"In this backdrop, Murugesan appeared before a team from Kancheepuram, when it camped here on December 1 last to probe the attack on Madhavan, who opposed the shifting of the Sivan Sannidhi within the Azhagiya Nambirayar temple. He reportedly told the investigation team that he would provide some documents on the proposed shifting of sannidhi as evidence of a rift between Madhavan and the temple authorities. Murugesan was found dead near the rail track near Kaavalkinaru on January 12. This might have forced the SIT to mistake it for murder even after the Nagercoil railway police concluded that it was a suicide," the sources said.

When the SIT camped here recently for three days to probe the death of Murugesan and the attack on Madhavan, they tried in vain to get "some useful information" from Murugammal, wife of the deceased. "Had she said something which the SIT wanted to hear from her, the case would have been altered as a case of murder," the family sources said.

`Family frustrated'

Frustrated by the alleged police harassment, the already-shattered family has reportedly decided to conduct the marriage of Jayalakshmi in Chennai with the support of her maternal uncle.

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