Chennai, June 11: Tension prevailed in the Puzhal prison, on the city’s outskirts, on Wednesday after life convict ‘Welding’ Kumar was stabbed to death by another convict.
According to police, Kumar and his friend, Nehru, were walking inside the prison when they spotted another inmate, Anbu, smoking a beedi. Nehru questioned Anbu as to how he dared to smoke in front of Kumar.
Anbu did not respond and continued smoking. This infuriated ‘Welding’ Kumar and he started abusing him. But when Anbu refused to heed him, Kumar drew out a knife and tried to stab him.
Anbu tried to avoid the attack, but the knife slashed his abdomen. Seeing this, Karmegam, also a life convict, and his aide, Raja, pounced on Kumar and attacked him.
Kumar tried to evade the blows, but was overpowered. Karmegam snatched Kumar’s knife and stabbed him in the throat. Other prisoners who were witness to the fracas and alerted the jail officials.
Kumar was immediately taken to the Royapettah government hospital, but he succumbed to injuries.
Director General of Police (prisons) R Nataraj told TOI that a revenue divisional officer would carry out an enquiry.
“Puzhal police have registered a case and the accused will be re-arrested. What Kumar was carrying was not a knife, but scrap material that was sharpened,” he clarified.
“This is the first major attack incident after the Puzhal prison opened. Clashes were common in the Central prison and the major ones occurred in 1979, 1995 and 1999,” said a police official.
‘Welding’ Kumar was the main accused in the lawyer R Shanmugasundaram attack case. On May 30, 1995, Shanmugasundaram, a lawyer appearing for DMK leader R S Bharathi, was attacked by a group of assailants at his office in Kilpauk.
—Agencies–