Image Courtesy: ndtv.com
A Special Court for Exclusive Trial under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention Act) has found 27 men guilty of killing three Dalit men in Kachanatham village in Tamil Nadu’s Sivagangai district in 2018. All convicts have been sentenced to life imprisonment.
The incident took place when a dispute originated when a group of Agamudayar (a dominant caste) felt offended when members of the Devendra Kulla Vellalar community received “first respect” at a temple festival, reported ABP News. They then attacked eight Dalit men in their homes with sickles, grievously injuring five and killing three men – Arumugam (65), Shanmuganathan (31) and Chandrasekar (34), on the night of May 28, 2018.
According to NDTV, police had filed a case against 33 accused, including four minors. Two accused died during the trial and a third has been absconding ever since.
The triple murders sent shockwaves across the region as they highlighted how caste inequality and caste-based violence were still prevalent. In 2019, Madurai bench of Madras High Court, while rejecting the bail of some of the accused, had reportedly observed that the triple murders were a “grim reminder of the ugly face of caste inequality in Sivaganga.”
While Special Court judge G Muthukumaran held all of the 27 remaining accused guilty and convicted them on August 1, the quantum of punishment was passed on Friday, August 5.
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