MADURAI: The Madurai Bench of Madras High Court on Thursday confirmed the life sentence imposed on 26 persons for murdering three Dalit men in a communal clash in Sivaganga's Kachanatham village in 2018. One person was acquitted.
A bench of justices GK Ilanthiraiyan and R Poornima passed the order on a batch of appeals filed by the 27 persons challenging the conviction and punishment imposed on them by the Special Court for Exclusive Trial of SC/ST (POA) Act cases in Sivaganga on August 5, 2022.
While the appeals filed by 26 convicts were dismissed, the one filed by P Ilayaraja (31) was allowed. The copy of the judgment is yet to be released.
According to the prosecution, on May 25, 2018, there was a dispute between the Scheduled Caste community and the Caste Hindu community of the village in getting Kalanji (temple honour) at the Karuppanasami temple in the village.
Since the temple belonged to the SC community, the honour was given to them. Enraged by this, M Chandrakumar had threatened Shanmuganathan and other SC community members with dire consequences the following day.
Based on this, a complaint was lodged against Chandrakumar and he was arrested and later released on bail the same day.
To exact revenge over the same, on May 28, 2018 at around 9 pm, a group of caste Hindu villagers attacked several SC villagers with deadly weapons and damaged their properties, killing three and injuring five others.
Shanmuganathan, Arumugam and Chandrasekar were hacked to death. Sugumaran, Malaisamy, Dhanasekaran, Maheshwaran and Deivendran were injured.
Based on a complaint lodged by Maheshwaran, Palayanoor police registered a case against 33 persons including 29 adults and four juveniles in conflict with law.
All 29 adults were chargesheeted in the case, of which one Prasanth alias Arunpandi died during the pendency of trial.
The case against another accused, Sullan Karuppiah, was split as he was absconding.
On August 5, 2022, the special court found all 27 accused guilty and sentenced them to life imprisonment, which was challenged in the above appeals.