A decade on, trial ends in acquittal. So, who drove the car that mowed down 3 near Marina beach road?

CHENNAI: During the early hours of Deepavali 2013, three persons, including a police constable, were killed after a car mowed them down on Kamarajar Salai, near the State police headquarters.

Police said that the driver was a college student, and that he was driving under the influence of alcohol. They arrested him and two other occupants including his sister, a doctor.

Ten years since the accident, the suspects were acquitted by a city court on Thursday, as all witnesses to the accident, including those who were injured by the car, could not place the driver at the scene and turned hostile witnesses. The two policemen on patrol, who first attended the scene too, could not identify whether the suspect was driving the car and gave contradictory statements.

A medical certificate stating he was drunk had no relevance when it could not be proved that he was the driver.

The case in 2013

Anna Square TIW (Traffic Investigation Wing) had registered a case against three persons – S Anbu Surya, his sister, S Lakshmi and a friend, S Krish, for the accident on November 2, 2013.

Head Constable Sekar (43), who was attached to the Marina police station, Thilakavathy (33), a fisherwoman and Arjun (19), a resident of Ayodhya Kuppam, were killed in the accident, which occurred at 3 am, while three others were injured.

According to the deposition by Sekar’s family, his wife was pregnant when he was killed. At the time of the accident, Anbu was a second-year college student. According to the prosecution, he was driving under the influence of alcohol. The other two occupants were booked for abetting the incident as they allowed Anbu to drive the vehicle despite knowledge of his drunken state. They were returning after attending a party at a star hotel in the city, according to the prosecution.

The case against Krish was tried separately, as he missed court proceedings regularly and the siblings were tried in the original case. “It’s the settled position of law that in this type of cases, the burden of proof lies only on the prosecution. The suspects, who are facing charges in this cases, can maintain their silence throughout the trial of the case as per the criminal jurisprudence,” the court noted, after the prosecution produced its witnesses and material evidence to make its case.

The original complainant in the case, who claimed to be an eyewitness, was not examined by the prosecution, the court noted. Two persons who were injured in the accident deposed before the court that they were not aware

if Anbu was driving the car. Another prosecution witness had died during the course of the trial.

Even the two cops, Dhanasekaran and Amavasai, who were on patrol duty nearby and attended to the accident scene, deposed before court that they did not identify Anbu as the driver involved in the accident.

Cops’ contradictory statements

Amavasai had stated a different story even in his chief examination, which is against the evidence adduced by Dhanasekaran, the court noted. According to SSI Amavasai, the occupants in the car got out of the car after the accident and were with the crowd. Hence, he could not identify the accused.

This was different from Constable Dhanasekaran’s version. He claimed that the occupants in the car were unconscious and that he had sent them to a hospital in an ambulance. As the patrol officers had not supported the prosecution’s case, both were treated as hostile witnesses by the additional public prosecutor, even though they are police officials.

Though the police had received a certificate from a government doctor that the driver was drunk, it was not enough. The doctor, who originally gave the certificate after examining Anbu, was not examined by the prosecution as she was no longer in government service.

“Mere influence of alcohol alone is not sufficient to prove the case of the prosecution. Out of the three persons in a car, the prosecution has not proved who had driven the car that caused the accident. Only then Section 185 of Motor Vehicles Act will be attracted,” pointed out Additional Sessions Judge J Chandran, who acquitted Anbu and his sister of the charges.