Tamil Nadu - Coimbatore   

Self-immolation bid: case against building owner

Staff Reporter

COIMBATORE: The Coimbatore Rural Police began on Tuesday a hunt for six persons, including a textile trader of Nagammanaickenpalayam near here, in connection with the self-immolation bid by a construction worker, N. Sampath, at the Coimbatore Collectorate on Monday.

Sampath, who suffered 100 per cent burns and was in a critical condition at the Coimbatore Medical College Hospital, gave a statement to the Race Course Police that he had been abused and threatened by the trader while working in his building that was under construction.

He said the trader, Shanmugham, did not return the wooden planks used for roof construction.

Sampath had lodged a complaint with the Sulur Police but the trader told the latter that he had returned all the planks and the case was allegedly dropped. Sampath accused the trader and five others of threatening to kill him for having complained to the police.

They also abused him using his caste name.

Sampath submitted a petition addressed to the District Collector on Monday around 1.30 p.m. Minutes later he set fire to himself behind the Jatropha Information Centre at the Collectorate, taking the people around and the police at the gates by surprise. His screams, while running as a human torch from the centre to the gates, drew their attention but they could not get close to him as tongues of flames leapt at them.

Finally, they managed to push him into the plants near the gates, threw mud on him to put out the fire and rushed him to the hospital.

The Race Course Police filed a case under the Protection of Civil Rights Act (for abusing his caste), Section 309 (instigating suicide) of the Indian Penal Code and Section 506 (2) (threat to life).

The case was transferred to the Sulur Police Station on Monday night.

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