Tenkasi: Man arrested for setting floor in front of temple on fire

A man reportedly poured petrol on the floor in front of Sri Kasi Viswanathar temple in Tenkasi and set the ground ablaze on Saturday (January 4, 2025)
| Photo Credit: Special Arrangement

The Tenkasi police have arrested a man who reportedly poured petrol on the floor in front of Sri Kasi Viswanathar temple in Tenkasi and set the ground ablaze on Saturday (January 4, 2025) morning.

Sources in the police said the man, who has been identified as Anantha Balan, 31, of Kaezhaiyapillaiyoor near Kadayam in the district, came to the temple at around 8 a.m. on Saturday. The police said he loitered in front of the shrine for a while before pouring 10 litres of petrol that he had brought with him in a plastic can on the granite floor in front of the temple. He then set the floor afire.

The police said he was “mentally unstable.”

With the flames billowing from the floor, where devotees had drawn ‘kolam’ as part of the ongoing Maargazhi celebrations, chaos prevailed near the temple premises for a while. While the temple workers and devotees alerted the police and Fire and Rescue Services personnel, some attempted to douse the flames and restrained the man. He was later handed over to the police.

A police team, led by Deputy Superintendent of Police, Tenkasi, Thamizh Iniyan, rushed to the spot and later interrogated the man at the Tenkasi police station. “He’s mentally unstable, it seems. He keeps talking of retrieving bones,” a police officer told The Hindu.

As renovation work is underway at Sri Kasi Viswanathar temple ahead of the ‘kumbabhishekam’, the incident triggered panic among the devotees, who appealed to the police to deploy armed personnel around the shrine to avert such incidents in the future.