Tenants push house owner’s son to death

The deceased was identified as K Sriram, 19, son of Kuppusamy, owner of the house located in Thiruvengadam Nagar in Arumbakkam. Police said he was a secondyear BCom student at a city college. Police had detained the tenant Raja’s wife Bhanu and their son Sankar, 29. Police believe that Bhanu and Sankar had pushed the youth to death after getting into an argument.

 Raja’s family had been staying in the house of Kuppusamy for years after taking a portion of the house on lease. Raja reportedly arranged a loan of Rs 2 lakh for Kuppusamy. As there was some delay in repaying the money and the interest there was some tension between the two families.

 After another tenant vacated a portion of the second floor, Raja is believed to have tried to take over the vacant portion for the Rs 2 lakh Kuppusamy has to pay. Raja and family also locked the vacant portion.

 This had further escalated the tension between the families and on Thursday evening Sriram tried to break the lock put by Raja. This led to a quarrel and police believe the mother-son duo, Bhanu and Sriram, pushed teenager Sankar from the second floor. He fell on the ground and was rushed to the hospital where he was declared dead on arrival. Arumbakkam police registered a case and detained Bhanu and Sankar.