17-year-old boy stabbed to death in Madurai

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Madurai: A 17-year-old boy was stabbed to death by a five-member gang near the Meenakshi Sundareswarar temple in Madurai due to previous enmity on Monday morning.

The deceased was identified as Gubendran, 17, of North Masi Street. He has several pending cases against him.

Police sources said that at around 1am, a five-member gang - Muthu Mani, 28, his younger brother Rajkumar, 26; Muthu Kumar, 19, of Thidir Nagar; Sathish Kumar, 28, of Melavasal; and Harikrishnan, 18, of North Masi Street, arrived at the parking complex of the Meenakshi temple on a two-wheeler. They started stabbing Gubendran. Initially, they stabbed him on the first floor and then took him to the ground floor and stabbed him again and fled the scene. With nearly 20 stab injuries, he died on the spot in a pool of blood.

Police rushed to the spot and sent the body to Govt Rajaji Hospital for postmortem. Forensic experts arrived at the scene and collected evidence.

Preliminary investigation revealed that on April 26, Muthu Mani attacked Gubendran in a fruit shop on Thalavai Agraharam Street, where he worked, over a verbal altercation. Following that incident, Gubendran attacked Muthu Mani using a knife, causing him a cut injury. Further, Gubendran was arrested by the Vilakkuthoon police, and he was subsequently released on bail by the judicial magistrate.

Meanwhile, the incident fumed another verbal altercation between the mothers of Muthu Mani and Gubendran. Enraged over all these incidents, Muthu Mani hatched a plot and killed Gubendran with the aid of his associates.

A case was registered by the Vilakkuthoon police, and five men were arrested

Tuticorin MP Kanimozhi condemned this incident over X post and said that, “It is heartbreaking that Tamil Nadu is in a state where we have to hear such news first thing in the morning. Tamil Nadu has become a state where children, women, differently-abled people, and the elderly have no protection. It is doubtful whether this new government is even aware that law and order has severely deteriorated.”.

Leader of the opposition Udhayanidhi Stalin and AIADMK general secretary Edappadi K Palaniswami also condemned this incident in an X post.