A 3-year-old boy, who went missing from Kamanaickenpalyam on Sunday afternoon, was found dead in a jute bag on the dry Parambikulam Aliyar Project (PAP) canal in Palladam on Tuesday morning.
The victim Naveen is the son of Suresh, a textile businessman and Shanmugapriya, a local panchayat board member. He had deep injuries on the head, police said.
The police had initially suspected it to be a case of human sacrifice, but later ruled out the chances as “the injury symptoms on the body of the victim do not indicate a human sacrifice,” said a police officer.
“The victim had gone missing on Ammavasai day and a copper plate lying near the body on the dry canal also compounded the belief of human sacrifice,” police sources said.
However, “Usually, the neck of a victim would be slit to extract blood in a case of human sacrifice. Preliminary medical examination revealed that the boy was killed by being hit with a strong object on the head.
Since the canal has been used by the locals to conduct rituals, the copper plate may have been one dropped there on some earlier occasion,” a police officer said seeking anonymity.
Naveen went missing, under mysterious circumstances while playing alone in front of his house at Kamanaickenpalayam on Sunday at around 3.30pm.
“After a futile search for their son in the neighbourhood, the parents lodged a missing complaint with the police the same night,” police said.
Meanwhile, on receiving information on a jute bag with bloodstains lying at the dry canal, police rushed to the spot on Tuesday morning.
The cops who opened the jute bag were shocked to find the body of a child in a decomposed state, which was later, identified to be Naveen by his parents.
The police also recovered a blood stained stone lying near the body.
The body has been sent for a post-mortem at the Palladam government hospital. Six special teams of police led by Palladam DSP R. Suresh Kumar have been formed to investigate the case.