Bodies of five Thoothukudi shooting victims handed over to kin

Initially, the district administration carried out postmortem of seven deceased, but the High Court directed it to carry out re-postmortem on all the seven bodies.

As directed by the court re-postmortem was carried on the bodies of Snowlin, Tamilarasan, Shanmugam, Karthick, Kandiah, Selva Sekar and Kaliappan in the presence of a doctor from the AIIMS. After the completion of postmortem the bodies of five, Shanmugam, Karthick, Kandiah, Selva Sekar and Kaliappan were handed over to their kin in the last two days. However, the kin of Snowlin and Tamilarasan refused to accept the bodies citing various reasons. Mary, aunt of Snowlin, said that though they will consider the death of Snowlin as a sacrifice for the cause of closure of Sterlite, the policemen who shot at her should be booked.

“They should be suspended and definite action should be taken against them. Also the Sterlite building should be razed, instead a memorial for all the 13 deceased should be constructed. Only if our demands are met we will accept the body,” said Mary.

In the meantime, the kin also complained that police are coercing them to accept the body but they are stubborn in their demands. However, the postmortem for bodies of six more deceased had not been done and the officials are waiting for further orders from the court.