Boy who went missing in Kovilpatti found dead

A 10-year-old boy, who had been missing since noon on Monday (December 9, 2024), was found dead in the early hours of Tuesday (December 10, 2024) in Kovilpatti, Thoothukudi district.

A 10-year-old boy, who had been missing since noon on Monday (December 9, 2024), was found dead in the early hours of Tuesday (December 10, 2024) in Kovilpatti, Thoothukudi district.

The police said the boy, Karuppasamy, lived with his parents Karthik Murugan and Balasundari and his older brother Manikandan, at Gandhi Nagar in Kovilpatti. While Murugan is a construction worker, Balasundari works at a match unit.

On Monday morning, both parents left for work, and Manikandan went to school. As Karuppasamy — who studied in Class 5 at a local school — was unwell, he stayed home alone.

At around 11 a.m., when Karuppasamy’s grandmother came to the house to check on him, she found that he was missing. She alerted Balasundari, who came home and searched for him. After a while, they informed the police.

Three special teams led by DSP V. Jaganathan looked for the missing child and checked CCTV cameras in the vicinity.

On Tuesday morning, Karuppasamy was found lying unconscious on the terrace of a neighbour’s house. After the family rushed the child to the hospital, the doctors declared him ‘brought dead’. “The victim could have died several hours ago,” hospital staff said.

Karuppasamy’s family alleged he was wearing a gold chain weighing about 12 grams and a one-gram ring, both of which were missing when he was found at the terrace. Kovilpatti West police have registered a case. Police officers who visited the scene of the crime suspected murder for gain, and said they would proceed with the probe based on the postmortem report.