The Madurai District Special Sessions Court for cases filed under the Schedule Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Act on March 5 convicted 10 persons, including the prime accused Yuvaraj, a Kongu Vellalar caste leader, in the gruesome murder of V. Gokulraj, a Dalit youth of Omalur near Salem in Namakkal district of Tamil Nadu in 2015.
The judge, T. Sampathkumar, said that the quantum of sentence under various sections of the law would be pronounced on March 8. The convicted included Yuvaraj, his brother Thangadurai and Arun, Kumar, Sankar, Arul Vasantham, Selvakumar, Sathishkumar, Raghu alias Sridhar and Ranjith. Five of the accused were acquitted. A total of 17 persons faced trial. Of them, one died during the course of the trial and another, who was arrested later, will face trial in a split case.
The Special Public Prosecutor B.B. Mohan said the murder was a clear case of honour killing. He said that those who were convicted were found guilty of the heinous crime under the provisions of both the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act. “This is a historic judgment," he said.
He said that the accused No.1, Yuvaraj, the founder member of the Maveeran Theeran Chinnamalai Gounder Ilaignar Peravai, which was formed to “maintain caste purity” especially to prevent the inter-caste marriage and in particular with Schedule Caste youths, used to organise many meetings prior to the brutal murder of Gokuraj and was involved in many cases of this nature. Gokulraj was murdered for having friendship with a girl from the intermediate caste of Kongu Vellalar Gounder.
Mohan said: “Unfortunately, the trial was not conducted in this case with proper framing of charges in Namakkal Sessions. All main witnesses turned hostile due to dominant caste influence of men and money power. I was appointed as SPP after examination of 41 witnesses. Chitra [Yuvraj’s mother] filed a petition for transfer of the trial to a court nearest to the Madras High Court, which then transferred it to the Madurai Special Court for SC/ST cases in May first week of 2019.” Totally 106 witnesses were examined, and 500 exhibits and 74 material objects were marked in this case, Mohan pointed out.
The 21-year old engineering college student Gokulraj was reportedly last seen with his girlfriend at the Sri Arthanareeshwarar temple at Tiruchnegode on June 23, 2015. A gang came to the temple and forcefully took him away despite his protests. The next day, June 24, his headless body was found on the railway track near a village in Namakkal district. Since her son did not come home from college, his mother Chitra lodged a complaint on June 23, itself.
Parthiban, an advocate in Salem and a human right activist, filed a petition before the Madras High Court seeking the inclusion of private doctors in the team that performs the post-mortem. The court obliged. The post-mortem revealed that the death of Gokulraj was a brutal and diabolical murder that amounted to culpable homicide. It claimed that the boy was strangled and stabbed in the neck. The case was initially registered as a case of suspicious death and later altered to one under Section 302 (murder) of the IPC.
A suicide note and a video clip allegedly by Gokulraj just before his death wre circulated on social media, in which the deceased claimed that he was committing suicide since his love was spurned. But the police did not buy this argument and said that he was coerced into writing the note and speaking on the video.
Two of the main accused, Sankar and Kumar, confessed to the crime when they surrendered. They confessed that Yuvaraj, along with Arun, the Namakkal district president of the Dheeran Peravai, and Kumar, abducted Gokulraj from the temple. While taking him to Sankagiri in Yuvaraj’s car, he was strangled and killed. His body was abandoned on the rail track near Pallipalayam.
Gokulraj’s death led to widespread protests across the State, forcing the then All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam (AIADMK) government led by Jayalalithaa to order a State Crime Branch-Criminal Investigation Department inquiry on September 21. The killing also exposed yet again the inherent caste discrimination in the western districts of Tamil Nadu.
Yuvaraj, hailing from Sankagiri in Salem district, was a rig operator. He remained absconding for more than three months. He also taunted the police by releasing videos from his hide-outs. He instigated his caste youths to take a pledge in every village that they should not marry outside the caste.
Meanwhile, a four-and-a-half minute conversation was released by the victim’s family, in which the girl with whom the deceased was last seen confessed that they were only friends. She said that the gang members told Gokulraj to talk to Yuvaraj before whisking him away from the temple. But when the pressure mounted, he surrendered before the CB-CID office at Namakkal on October 11, 2015, amid a big welcome from his supporters.
Prior to the CB-CID investigation, Tiruchnegode DSP R. Vishnupriya, who was investigating the case, was found hanging in her official residence in Tiruchengode. It had led to another bout of controversies with her family members and others blaming the mental stress she, a Dalit, underwent due to pressure from senior officials. However, Vishnupriya reportedly left a suicide note saying that her decision had nothing to do with the case ( Frontline , October 16, 2015).
Yuvaraj, while he was on the run, released a 20-minute audio conversation between him and Vishnupriya in which the DSP claimed that she was suffering due to pressure from the senior officers because he was absconding. Yuvaraj alleged in the audio that senior police officers and some politicians were targeting him. He said that she was an honest officer.
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