Chennai, Aug 5 (BPNS)
The Special Court in Sivaganga has sentenced 27 convicts in the triple murder of three men of the Scheduled Caste community in Sivaganga. The triple murder took place on May 28, 2018, when an armed gang from a dominant community attacked indiscriminately in Kachanatham village, Sivaganga district of Tamil Nadu.
Three persons from the Scheduled Caste community who were murdered are K. Arumugam, A. Shanmuganathan, and V. Chandrashekhar. The three were hacked to death following a dispute relating to presenting temple honours at Kachanatham.
The Special Court for the exclusive trial of cases under the SC/ST (PoA) Act in Sivaganga sentenced the 27 convicts in the Kachanatham murder to life imprisonment on Friday.
It may be noted that the Special Court judge, Muthukumaran convicted the 27 accused persons in the Kachanatham murder case on August 1 but the sentence was pronounced on Friday.
33 men of a dominant community including 4 juveniles were charge-sheeted in the case and one died during the trial. The special court judge had heard the convicts and the family members of the victims on August 3 through video conferencing on the sentence to be given to the convicts.
The Madurai bench of the Madras High Court while rejecting the bail plea of some of the accused in 2019 had stated that the brutal manner in which a group of men from the dominant community had murdered people from Scheduled Castes was a grim reminder of the ugly face of caste inequality in Sivaganga district of the state and that it had a telling effect on the peace and tranquility in the village.
The Kachanthanam incident occurred after two Dalit men did not give respect to 19-year-old youth from the upper caste community during the Karupannaswamy temple festival at Kachathanam village in Sivaganga. The issue occurred on May 26, 2018. The youth, Suman along with his brother Arun and other members of the community attacked Dalit settlements in Kachathanam village on May 28 and killed K. Arumugam and A. Shanmuganadan. Another Dalit person, Chandrashekhar passed away at a hospital two days later after suffering from a brutal attack. Two Sub Inspectors of the local Palayanoor police station, Janakiraman and Selvam were placed under suspension after the SC community members had alleged that they had colluded with the killers.
