In the footage, a 70-year-old man, identified as Shanmugavel, is pictured sitting outside his house in Kalyanipuram, a small village in the South Indian state of Tamil Nadu. A masked robber then slowly sneaks up behind him and attempts to choke Shanmugavel using what appears to be a piece of cloth. Moments later, Shanmugavel’s 65-year-old wife, identified as Senthamarai, runs outdoors just as a second masked robber appears.
Senthamarai throws a pair of slippers at the robber choking her husband, hitting him and allowing Shanmugavel to escape and hurl a plastic chair at the intruders. Although the intruders appear to be carrying some type of blades, Shanmugavel and his wife continue to bravely fling everything in their sight on the robbers, including chairs and stools, until the intruders flee the scene.
“Very brave couple,” one social media commented on video of the altercation circulating on Twitter.
“WOW, hats off,” another wrote.
“We live in a farmhouse at the edge of the village, and it is located very close to the forest. It is a five-acre land, and we have been here for 40 years. We were acutely aware of the fact that we were susceptible to attacks from robbers because our house was isolated from the rest of the village,” Shanmugavel recently told Indian news website The News Minute.
“When I was getting strangled, I immediately began to make loud noises to get my wife’s attention. I knew it didn’t have to make sense. It just had to bring her to the entrance,” he continued.
Senthamarai, who appeared completely unfazed by the attack, laughed when a reporter from The News Minute commended her for her bravery.
“Because I love my husband of course. How can I bear to watch when someone is hurting him?” she responded when asked how she was able to react so quickly and bravely.
“One of them hurt my hand with the sickle, and in that gap, managed to steal my gold chain ... But my husband is [not hurt], and I am happy we chased the intruders away,” she continued.
Local police have not yet identified any suspects in the case.