Nearly 23 years after a Tamil separatist militant group carried out a daring attack on a police station in Cuddalore district, nine members belonging to the banned Tamil Nadu Viduthalai Padai (Tamil Nadu Liberation Army) were pronounced guilty by a trial court here on Thursday.
The members were held guilty under about a dozen charges, including murdering a police constable.
Suba Ilavarasan, presently the leader of Tamizhar Neethi Katchi, was one of the convicts in the case and was arrested along with the other eight convicts after the judgment was pronounced on Thursday.
The armed members of the militant group, which wanted to carve out an independent country for Tamils from India, attacked the Puthur police station in the wee hours of April 6, 1991 to loot arms and ammunition from the police station. According to the prosecution, ten members of the outfit, on instigation of the outfit’s leader Soo alias Sundaram, entered the police station and assaulted the police personnel with sickles, knives and guns. Police constable Rajendran was killed in the attack and four other personnel suffered injuries.
The case was later transferred to the CB-CID for investigations and was committed for trial to the Poonamallee special court for bomb blast cases. However, the trial was much delayed due to various reasons and the court could frame the charges against the accused only in January 2008.
After examination of 50 prosecution witnesses, the trial court judge V Ramasamy held that the prosecution has proved all the charges against the nine accused beyond reasonable doubt.
The CB-CID had originally filed charges against 11 members of the outfit. However, charges against two of the accused were abated as one of them, Lenin, died during the trial and another accused, Elango Mani, turned approver.
The court is expected to pronounce the quantum of punishment for the nine convicts on Monday. Eight of the nine convicts, who were convicted for murder among other charges, face prospects of either death or life sentence.
Sundaram, who was then the leader of the outfit, was held guilty of only conspiracy to attempt a robbery and hence could be sentenced for a maximum of only seven years. He had already served eight years in prison.
The other convicts in the case are Venkatesan, Amulraj alias Selvam, Kumar alias Gopal, Nallarasu, Ravi alias Velmurugan, Senguttuvan, Murugesan and Suba Ilavarasan.
“The trial in the case was delayed for so many years as the accused were approaching various higher courts intentionally to delay the trial.
However, at last we were able to conclude the trial and prove all the charges against every one of them,” special public prosecutor N Vijayaraj told Express.