The owner, Anandan, claimed that the two youths were probably electrocuted after coming into contact with the cables set up near the field to ward off wild boars.
The decased youths Sathish and Shijith.
The Palakkad Town South police on Wednesday, 27 September, confirmed that the two bodies recovered from a paddy field at Kodumbu were of two missing youths.
The bodies of Sathish and Shijith were found stacked one over the other in a pit on Tuesday evening. The owner of the field, Anandan, confessed to burying them, the police said.
Anandan reportedly told the police that the men may have been electrocuted after coming into contact with an illegally erected electric fence, set up to protect the crops from marauding wild boars.
“We have to verify his statements. The cause of death will be clear only after the post-mortem examination. Until then, we can’t confirm the reports that they were electrocuted,” an officer from the Town South police station told South First.
“The landowner has been charged with murder. Further charges will be made only after receiving the post-mortem report,” he added.
The deceased had gone into hiding along with two others, Abin and Ajith, after a brawl at Kurudikkad on Sunday. The police found their hideout at Satheesh’s residence. The men fled the house to escape arrest.
Later, Abin and Ajith surrendered before the police on Tuesday and said Sathish and Shijith could not be found.
“We went back there to search for the other two, but could not find them. But we noticed the ground was disturbed at one place with the mud having been moved. Since it was late in the night, we could not examine the site further,” the officer said, adding that the bodies were taken out later.
Meanwhile, residents accused the police of unnecessary haste in arresting the youth in the minor case, which led to their deaths.
If Anandan’s statement is true, the cause of death of the duo could be attributed to the continuing man-wild animal conflict in Kerala.
Illegal electric fences are one of the primary methods used by the farmers in the state to keep away wild animals, especially wild boars.
The issue has been haunting the farmers for so long since the government’s actions were unable to save their crops from being attacked by wild animals.
In the wake of the increase in wild boar attacks on crops and human life, the Kerala government amended the Wildlife Protection Act in May last year, allowing the killing of wild boars that pose a threat, to both human life and crops.
However, since the process of killing the boars involves so many legal formalities, the farmers are still relying upon the age-old illegal techniques of electric fences and firecrackers.
The loss of life due to electric fences is not the first in the state with many deaths, reported and unreported, occurring across the state.
In 2015, a man was electrocuted in Kollam and in May 2022, another person was electrocuted in Thiruvananthapuram.
Two policemen from the Kerala Armed Police – II camp in Palakkad were killed after they came into contact with an illegal electric fence at Muttikulangara in Palakkad in May 2022. The deceased were identified as M Ashok Kumar, 36, and Mohandas, 35.
However, the issue of the illegal traps caught national attention when a pregnant wild elephant died after trying to consume a firecracker, in 2020. It had gained a lot of media traction with even celebrities condemning the trap.
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