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.
READ: Lovers shot dead in suspected honour killing in Uttar Pradesh
