Chennai (Tamil Nadu): While delivering a verdict in a packed court hall, in an eighteen-year-old honour killing case, Special Judge Uttamarasa said this punishment should serve as a deterrent to others so that such barbaric acts won't be repeated in Tamil Nadu. The judge was pronouncing death sentence to a person and life imprisonment to 12 others, including the victim's father and the two policemen, in the 2003 honour killing case on Friday.
The judge was delivering the verdict in the Murugesan-Kannagi murder case.
The special court constituted under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act convicted the 13 accused, while acquitting two, of the murder of inter-caste couple S. Murugesan and D. Kannagi, Special Judge for Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes cases, S. Uthamaraja, sentenced Kannagi's brother D. Maruthupandian, 49, to death, besides slapping a penalty of Rs4.5 lakh.
In 2003, S Murugesan, a Dalit, and D Kannagi, who got married, were poisoned to death in the village graveyard at Puthukooraipettai near Vriddachalam in Cuddalore district of Tamil Nadu, about 230km from Chennai.
Murugesan, fell in love with Kannagi, a Vanniyar community girl, while they were studying at the Annamalai University. The couple eloped and tied the knot on May 5, 2003, at the Cuddalore sub-registrar's office without informing their relatives.
However, Kannagi's family was searching for them, and when they found them, they confined and tortured them. Their bodies were then burnt separately.
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The local police refused to take action on the complaint from the boy's family. Later an FIR was registered after the issue was reported in the media, but the police arrested members belonging to both sides and refused to investigate it as an honour killing.
Human rights activists, CPI(M) and other political parties cried foul over the local police being slack in the investigation. Following a crusade by public-spirited lawyer P. Rathinam, Madras High Court transferred the case to the CBI in 2004.
The CBI in a charge sheet submitted in 2009 concluded that the duo was killed by Kannagi's family due to caste discrimination. Two police officers, then Virudhachalam Sub-inspector Tamizhmaran and then Inspector Sellamuthu were charged with abetting the convicts. The case which came up for trial in the Cuddalore Sessions Court was then shifted to SC/ST special court for speedy justice. The police officer-duo were slapped with life sentences under the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act and fined Rs.1.15 lakh each.
Two relatives of Murugesan were acquitted in the case.
A heavy police posse was present in the court premises fearing retaliatory attacks against the family of Murugesan or to other Dalit families in the area after the verdict came.
The inhuman murder of the inter-caste couple also gave birth to an acclaimed short novel, 'Pethavan' (Father) by Sahitya Akademi award-winning author Imayam.
Welcoming the judgement, CPI(M) state secretary K. Balakrishnan had demanded that the Tamil Nadu government bring in special legislation to curb honour killings.
