Salem, August 30: A “soothsayer” and her husband have been arrested for allegedly poisoning six children in the last one and a half years by feeding them pesticide-mixed food at a village in Attur near here in a bid to gain fame and money, police said today.
The duo were arrested yesterday following an investigation into the ‘mysterious deaths’ of healthy children, aged between three and seven years, during this period, they said, adding postmortem reports confirmed that the children were poisoned.
Investigation had revealed that Perumayee (45), with the help of her husband Palanimuthu (50), poisoned the children.
Perumayee told police that she mixed poison with food or snacks and fed them to the children and later approach the parents and ‘predict’ that a death would occur in their house within a few hours in order to gain popularity as a soothsayer and earn money and fame.
—Agencies