The special court for cases booked under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act here on Saturday convicted 10 persons, including Theeran Chinnamalai Gounder Pervai founder S. Yuvaraj, in the 2015 murder of V. Gokulraj, an engineering graduate belonging to the Scheduled Caste, in Namakkal district, after he was found visiting a temple with a girl belonging to an intermediate community. Five others arraigned as accused were acquitted.
The III Additional District Judge, T. Sampathkumar, will pronounce the quantum of sentence on March 8. The 10 persons were found guilty of offences committed under the Indian Penal Code, including murder, and under the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
On June 24, 2015, the body of Gokulraj was found with his head severed on the rail track near Pallipalayam in Namakkal district. The youth from Omalur in Salem district visited a temple with his friend Swathi, a Caste Hindu, on June 23, 2015. Following this, he was abducted by members of the caste outfit and murdered.
Amudharasu, one of the 17 accused arraigned in the case, was facing trial in Namakkal and another person, Jothimani, had died. The trial in the murder case was transferred to the special court in Madurai from the Principal District and Sessions Court, Namakkal, following a direction from the Madras High Court.
V. Chitra, Gokulraj’s mother, had apprehended that she might not get justice if the trial continued in Namakkal and approached the High Court seeking the transfer of the case. She complained that the accused were threatening the witnesses; as a result, they were turning hostile.
The then Deputy Superintendent of Police, Vishnu Priya, who was investigating the case died by suicide. The CB-CID then took over the probe. The main accused, Yuvaraj, has several cases against him in various courts. In the Gokulraj murder case, he was on the run for over 100 days before he surrendered. He had also released audio clips on social media with regard to the incident while he was on the run.
The nine others convicted are P. Arun, V. Sivakumar, R. Sathiskumar, S. Ragu, D. Ranjith, D. Selvaraj, S. Chandrasekaran, M. Prabhu and P. Giridhar.
V. Sankar, S. Arul Senthil, P. Selvakumar, S. Thangadurai and P. Suresh were acquitted. The 15 accused were produced before the Special Court around 11 a.m..
Addressing mediapersons on the district court premises, Special Public Prosecutor Bhavani B. Mohan said that though Swathi, a key witness, had turned hostile, the CCTV footage played an important role. A scientific and forensic analysis proved that it was a case of murder, he said.
Ms. Chitra said the family members had gone through a lot of suffering and she had lost her beloved son. She hoped the highest punishment would be awarded to the convicts and said the family would appeal against the acquittal of the five accused. She sought protection for her family members and alleged her elder son V. Kalaiselvan was constantly facing harassment.
In 2020, the Supreme Court had expressed shock over the murder due to alleged caste pride, while refusing to consider the bail plea of Yuvaraj. It had wondered how such an incident of “honour killing” had taken place in Tamil Nadu. “For you, it is jail”, the court told the senior counsel representing Yuvaraj.
