2014 Udappankulam case: Triple murders to terrorise Dalits, accused deserve death, says court

CHENNAI: Handing down the death penalty to four accused and life sentence to seven others, all from the intermediary caste, in the brutal triple murder of three Dalits in 2014 in Udappankulam village in Tenkasi (then in Tirunelveli) district, the special court for Protection of Civil Rights Act cases in Tirunelveli said the murders were to "terrorise and frighten them into fleeing " and came under the ambit of "rarest of rare cases".

"It is found that there is no strong motive or enmity. The only thing that annoyed the accused community was that the members of the Pallar community used to give complaints at the police station under the provisions of the SC/ST Act whenever any crime was committed against them. Members of the Konar community expected total submission from the Pallar community. Since the Pallar community, instead of being submissive, sought legal recourse, which is only a lawful act, the Yadava community members could not tolerate the same," the court noted.

The genesis of the murder dates back to 2014 New Year's eve when the Yadava (Konar) community members burst crackers near the flag post of the Pallars, which led to a heated exchange of words. The simmering tensions continued, and five months later, on May 28, two men from the Konar community assaulted two persons after which one of the victims, K Rajesh, filed a police complaint leading to their arrests.

Irate over this, members of the Konar community in Udappankulam village conspired together and planned to murder two or three members of the Pallar community people in order to teach them a lesson, the prosecution claimed. On June 1, more than 10 persons armed with weapons rounded up members of the Pallar community who were riding towards Sankarankoil and hacked them to death. The deceased included Rajesh's father, Kaliraj.

Two of the deceased, Venugopal and Murugan, were not even residents of Udappankulam. They had come from Coimbatore to attend a family event in the village. "There cannot be any excuse for killing innocent persons who were in no way connected with any of the quarrel or enmity between the two communities and they were innocent persons living in Coimbatore who just wanted to return to their hometown after attending a puberty function," said K Suresh Kumar, additional district and sessions judge.

In the interest of justice and to secure the confidence of members of Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes people in the judicial system, the court said that it has decided that the death penalty is appropriate in the given circumstances.

FACTS OF THE CASE:

- Of the 25 accused, three persons died while ten were acquitted

- G Ponnumani (34), A Gurusamy (34), S Kaliraj (35) and R Muthukrishnan (52) sentenced to death

- S Paramasivan (40), C Kannan (55), K Muthusamy (50), V Kannan (38), V Balamurugan (58), K Ganesamoorthy (40) and G Karuppasamy (55) sentenced to life

- When murder of a Scheduled caste or minority community etc., is committed not for personal reasons but in circumstances which arouse social wrath – SC defining ‘rarest of rare’ principle

Caste atrocities drive Dalit families out of their native village

CHENNAI: The four persons who were awarded death sentences did not regret their heinous crimes and were even involved in other criminal activities after the 2014 murder, according to the probation officer who made a field visit to the village.

K Suresh Kumar, the additional district and sessions judge, Tirunelveli, noted in his judgment, “The probation officer examined respectable persons of the locality and has stated that the accused party are abusing the complainant parties using caste name, and illtreating them and oppressing them. This prompted a few families to leave the village, unable to endure the oppression.”

The person, whose family event the deceased men attended on the fateful day of their murder, has shifted base to Puducherry, according to witness depositions. Two of them had come from Coimbatore to Udappankulam to attend the event and were returning home when they fell prey to the conspiracy of the oppressor caste men.

From the prosecution’s side, two witnesses deposed before the court that they witnessed and heard members of the Yadava community talking about doing away with some members of the Pallar community, and it was communicated to their villagers, too. What inspired the court’s confidence was the evidence of Arjunan, who had categorically stated the names of some accused as he heard them while herding goats. “Further his answers have stood the test of cross-examination,” the court noted.

Of those found guilty by the court, except G Karuppasamy (55), an advocate, all others come from agricultural backgrounds, and most of them are illiterate.

While the probation officer who conducted a field visit at the accused’s village had noted that those awarded the death sentence - G Ponnumani (34), A Gurusamy (34), S Kaliraj (35) and R Muthukrishnan (52) - showed no remorse, some of the accused tried their luck to game the system.

Conspicuously, a week before the verdict, Karuppasamy, who was awarded life imprisonment, was admitted to a hospital claiming that his business rivals assaulted him.

Another accused, C Kannan (55), sentenced to life, submitted medical records to show he has 100 per cent visual impairment now. However, the doctor who examined the accused stated that he could not give an opinion regarding the power of eyesight of the accused in 2014 when the murder happened.

“On perusal of the remand report, nothing regarding the visual impairment is noted. The burden of proof is totally on him, and it is his onus to prove that he was visually impaired at the time of the occurrence. The accused trying to prove that he was visually impaired at the time of the incident is only a vague effort, and he had failed to do so,” the court noted.