Kausalya and Sankar got married eight months ago. Kausalya and Sankar got married eight months ago.

A day after a Dalit man was killed on a busy street in Udumalaipettai town of Tamil Nadu’s Tirupur district, the father-in-law of the victim surrendered before a court in Dindigul on Monday and claimed responsibility for the murder.

Six teams have been formed to look for the assailants. Udumalaipttai’s DSP Vivekanandan said although there were several witnesses, not many have been helpful in giving a firsthand account of the assailants. “We are still looking for more witnesses. We will make arrests soon,” he said.

On Monday, the police said they are looking for a five-member gang, against the three bikers who were initially thought to have carried out the daylight fatal attack on V Shankar, 22, and left his wife Kausalya, 19, severely injured. The police claimed to have intensified the search operations based on witness accounts and CCTV footage of the incident, which took place around 3 pm near Udumalaipettai bus stand.

Read Also: Dalit man hacked to death 8 months after he married Thevar woman

Kausalya’s maternal uncle and his son, an engineering student, were taken into custody on Sunday night and are being interrogated, the police said.

Meanwhile, PTI reports that Kausalya, who is hospitalised in Coimbatore, has blamed her father for the murderous attack on Shankar and said she will be in a position to identify the culprits.

According to a senior officer, Chinnaswamy has admitted that he had decided to kill both his daughter and Shankar after they married against his wishes.

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Chinnaswamy belongs to the Thevar community, a socially and politically powerful community in Tamil Nadu. Shankar came from a Dalit family based in Kumaralingam village, near Udumalaipettai town. He was two batches senior to Kausalya in the engineering college, and the two reportedly married some eight months ago.

Visuals captured by a CCTV camera near the spot show that three men on a bike attacked the couple from behind with sickles. The footage also shows two other men watching the scene and giving directions, before leaving the spot, the police said.

Meanwhile, in Shankar’s village, locals held a protest march and demanded immediate arrest of the accused and a compensation of Rs 10 lakh for the victim’s family and Kausalya, as also a job for her.

Tension also prevailed at the government hospital in Udumalaipettai, as the parents and more than 60 relatives of Shankar refused to accept the body, demanding immediate arrest of the culprits and proof of the arrest.

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