TUMAKURU : A local court here on Thursday sentenced 21 people, including two women, to life imprisonment for murdering a Dalit woman 14 years ago.
Judge Nageereddy also ordered them to pay a fine of Rs 5,000 each. They murdered ‘Dhaba’ Honnamma, 45, at Gopalapura village in Chikkanayakanahalli taluk on June 28, 2010. The convicted are Ranganath GS, Majula, Raju alias Devaraju, Srinivasa, Swamy alias Anandaswamy, Venkataswamy, Venkatesh, Nagaraju, Rajappa alias Ramaiah, Meese Hanumanthaiah, Gangadhara alias Ganganna, Satyappa alias Satisha, Nanjundaiah, Chandrashekar alias Chandraiah, Ranganna alias Ramaiah, Umesha, Bulle Hanumanthaiah, Channamma alias Chinnamma, Jayanna alias Jayakumar alias Narasingaiah, KG Manju and Swamy. Six of the accused died when the trial was on.
Tiptur DySP Shivarudraswamy investigated the case and filed the chargesheet against 27 accused. Honnamma had filed a complaint with Handanakere police against some of the accused for allegedly smuggling the logs she had collected to build her dhaba.
She ran the dhaba along with her live-in partner. She had also unsuccessfully contested gram panchayat elections twice. She was an office-bearer of Chikkanayakanahalli taluk unit of BJP.