Police have arrested two people in connection with the abduction and murder of a 10-year-old girl in Coimbatore, after her body was found near the Kannampalayam tank in the Sulur area on Friday. The body has been sent to the Government Medical College and ESI Hospital for post-mortem examination, while the investigation remains under way.
According to reports, the child had gone missing on Thursday evening after stepping out to a nearby shop near her home. Police later traced the case to a suspected abduction and identified the accused as Karthik, a 33-year-old man from Nagapattinam who had been living in Pallapalayam near Sulur, and his aide Mohan Raj, who was detained for allegedly assisting him.
The girl’s body was recovered from a lakebed near Kannampalayam, and police said the child may have been abducted on a two-wheeler before being killed. The arrest and recovery triggered anger in the area, with locals and the victim’s family staging protests on Sulur Road through Friday night and into early Saturday.
In a statement cited by the family, the child’s uncle Palanisamy said the relatives were from Kolathur and received information about the girl only late at night. He said the family later learned that she had been kidnapped and that two persons had already been arrested, but they were still waiting for answers from police and could not yet see the body. He added that officials told them the inquiry was continuing and that more details would be available only after the post-mortem.
Police have not yet released the full sequence of events publicly, but the case has already drawn wide attention because of the victim’s age, the suspected abduction from a routine visit to a nearby shop, and the discovery of the body in a public waterbody area. As of Saturday morning, the post-mortem was the next major step in the investigation.