MADURAI: A special court for cases booked under SC/ST Act has sentenced ten persons to life imprisonment until death for kidnapping and murdering a scheduled caste youth, V Gokulraj, in Namakkal in 2015.
While the prime accused in the case, S Yuvaraj, founder of Dheeran Chinnamalai Gounder Peravai, was awarded triple life-term, six others – P Arun, V Kumar, R Sathikshkumar, D Ragu, D Ranjith, D Selvaraj – were slapped with double life-term and three – S Chandrasekaran, M Prabhu and P Gridhar – were given single life-term in the case. The court also said the convicts will not be granted bail during their imprisonment.
Earlier in the day, when the judge asked them for their statements, all the ten accused said they were falsely implicated in the case. Meanwhile, Gokulraj’s mother V Chithra said her son did not commit any mistake and that he was kidnapped, tortured and brutally murdered by the accused only because he was born in a scheduled caste community.
Though Chitra got Rs 10 lakh from the State government recently, the judge said if she is eligible to get more money, she could approach the district legal services authority. The conviction details of the 11th accused, T Amudharasu, will be pronounced by the Principal District Judge of Namakkal.
Addressing media persons, Special Public Prosecutor, Bhavani B Mohan, said though the judgment is delayed, he is welcoming it. “The ten will remain in prison throughout their life. If the convicts move the Madras High Court with an appeal, he will ensure that their sentence is not commuted. Moreover, we will also file a petition to bring all the five who are acquitted in the case - V Sankar, S Arunsenthil, P Selvakumar, S Thangathurai and P Suresh - to book,” he said.
V Chithra told newspersons though she expected a death penalty for the accused, she is happy with the judgment. She also thanked Advocate Mohan for ensuring social justice in the case. Also, she expreessed her gratitude to the VCK party cadre who extended their support throughout.
Age comes to rescue
Judge T Sampathkumar, in his judgment, said the convicts were not given capital punishment as they were 20-30 years old at the time of the murder. The judge said they didn’t have any previous enmity with Gokulraj and that seeing him talking to the girl belonging to their community had angered them, leading to the murder. A total of 106 witnesses were questioned in the case