Mystery shrouds migrant workers’ death

A day after the mysterious deaths of two North East workers, employed at a construction site along the Tambaram-Velachery main road, triggered rumours of cholera outbreak and poisoning, a majority of the over 650 migrant workers in the city left for their hometowns.

On Tuesday, Sugumar Thudu (21) and Lal Chand (24) were both declared ‘brought dead’ at different government hospitals here.

By evening the same day, their panic-stricken colleagues, a majority of them from West Bengal, Bihar, and Uttar Pradesh, boarded trains from Central station.

The remaining workers -- many of them could not afford the journey-- relocated and moved in with relatives working elsewhere in the city.

Rumours were afloat that at least five workers died while working at a construction site after allegedly being poisoned by a colleague also contributed to the trouble.

Sources said that the contractor of the construction site only provided accommodation to the workers.

The workers cooked on their own, in groups of 10 and 15, and purchased the grocery themselves.

Police inspector Arockia Raveendran pointed out that not all the individuals of the group of workers were affected.

Isolated individuals were affected by the outbreak within the residential area of the workers, he said.

Meanwhile, sources said water contamination could have led to the deaths as the workers did not have access to potable water facilities.

The inspector, who did see a possibility that the victims could have been poisoned, said the actual cause of death could be ascertained only on the basis of the post mortem reports.

Pirated DVDs, Gadgets Seized, One Held

A man was arrested and a huge cache of pirated DVDs of English, Telugu and Hindi movies and copying gadgets, worth Rs 11.9 lakh, seized from his house by Central Crime Branch (CCB) police here on Tuesday.

Acting on specific information regarding the sale of pirated DVDs led the cops to S Mustafa (26), a resident of Sathyamoorthy Nagar. As many as 300 English DVDs, 400 Telugu DVDs and 800 Hindi ones, apart from those containing pornography were seized.