Young Couple murdered in Coimbatore

In a brutal double murder in Coimbatore outskirts, a power loom owner and his wife were clubbed and stabbed to death by two labourers in their loom at Somanur on Saturday night.

The young couple, P Shanmugham (35) and S Manomani (30), were found lying in a pool of blood with head and chest wounds at their weaving unit on Sunday morning. The ghastly murder came to light when the couple's three-year-old son Abhirami was found wailing outside their farm house. They have a seven-month-old child, too, Kavindran.

In the power loom hub of Somanur, Shanmugham was operating about 12 looms in a weaving unit adjoining his sprawling farm house. On Sunday night, two workers on night shift rang the door bell of his house and called him to the weaving unit to fix a repair in the loom. According to the police, an unsuspecting Shanmugham went to the loom where he was clobbered with iron rods and stabbed with a sickle.

As Shanmugham did not return home for a long time, his wife went to the weaving unit and met with the same tragic fate. She too was attacked with iron rods and sickle. However, the identity of the two workes is not known as they had been hired only 10 days ago.

While the local weavers worked during the day shift, workers from southern Tamil Nadu or north India were engaged to do the night shifts, police said. Often, the local power loom owners hire people who arrived by night trains from various parts of Tamil Nadu and north India to Tirupur to work at their looms without checking their backgrounds. The acute labour shortage in the textile belt forced the power loom operators to hire complete strangers. Such hasty hiring has cost the lives of Shanmugham and his wife and orphaned their children.

"The workers who are in need of a job wait at Somanur railway gate at nights. The owners of the power looms would hire them without any enquiry. Shanmugam had hired two workers from the Somanur railway gate for his power looms only 10 days ago," said ADSP M Annadurai.