In an incident of suspected moral policing in Kerala, a 55-year-old daily-wage worker was beaten to death by a group of young men near Cherpulassery in Palakkad district on Sunday night.
The body of Prabhakaran from Mulayankavu, Cherpulassery in Palakkad district was found by the police late Sunday night at Kulukkalloor within the Cherpulassery police station limits. A woman living near the spot where the body was found told the police that she had seen a group of about 15 young men beating up Prabhakaran at about 8.30 pm on Sunday.
The Cherpulassery police have taken four persons into custody in connection with the incident. According to police officials, Prabhakaran could have been beaten up by the gang as he was returning home from a friend’s house in Kulukkalloor. It is said that a dispute over the allegation that a woman was seen with him had led to the incident.
“I saw him lying there on the mud-path and I thought I would give him some water. I sprinkled some water on his face and body, but there was no response,” said the woman, who was eyewitness to the incident. The police reached the spot after being informed by the woman but by then Prabhakaran had died.
“At 10.00 pm on Sunday, Prabhakaran’s son had received a call from his phone. But the call was not from Prabhakaran. Somebody else called from his phone to tell his son that his father was there at Kulukkalloor,” said a neighbour of the victim. There were reports that attacks on people in the name of moral policing had taken place in the area earlier also.
local residents said that some youths used to gather in the village on the pretext that there was an increase in incidents of burglary. They said these gangs were in the habit of questioning any strangers seen in the village during night time. However, police sources said that the people were not coming forward to identify the youths who used to do this.
People of Kulukkalloor said Prabhakaran, who lived by doing farm-related works in the area, was not a stranger and that his house was about two kilometres away. There were no visible injury marks on the body and officials said he could have died of internal hemorrhages. The body was on Monday afternoon sent to the Medical College Hospital, Thrissur for autopsy.
Shaheed alias Bava (26), a cable TV service provider in Kodiyathur, Kozhikode was the first person to be killed by moral goons in Kerala. A group of men, all belonging to a particular community, had brutally beaten him up by tying him to an electric pole on the night of November 9, 2011 as he was leaving the house of a young woman.