Chennai, Oct 9 (IANS): A 53-year-old man was shot dead on Sunday in Tamil Nadu's Mettupalayam district after he alleged that a person had stolen his goats from the farm.

The victim, identified as Chinnasami, according to Mettupalayam police was a farmer who reared cattle for a living. He noticed that some of his goats were missing and found that the goats were lifted by someone.

Local people informed Chinnasami that a person, Ranjit (28) was behind this and that he was regularly stealing goats in the village. On hearing this, Chinnasamy confronted Ranjit leading to an altercation between the two. Police said that Ranjit feigned ignorance and said that he had not lifted any goats belonging to Chinnasami.

The farmer was not convinced by Ranjit's denial and assaulted him. The incident, according to the Mettupalayam police occurred on Saturday afternoon and Ranjit left the place.

Early Sunday morning, Ranjit came back with a single-barrel loaded gun called up Chinnasami, and fired at him. Chinnasami died on the spot.

Mettupalayam police rushed to the spot and arrested Ranjit, who was hiding at a friend's place. Police said that they are conducting an investigation into whether Ranjit has been a habitual offender and the source of his gun.