The Principal Sessions Court in Cuddalore awarded life sentence to 17 persons, all of whom are close and distance relatives, on Monday for murdering an AIADMK functionary, Thanga Janarthanan, at T Kumarapuram near Cuddalore on October 28, 2008.
Since 14 of the accused hailed from T Kumarapuram, also the village of the 50-year-old deceased, a huge crowd gathered at the court premises. When Principal Sessions judge Uthirapathy pronounced the judgment, a pall of gloom descended on the crowd with some of the relatives breaking to tears in the court campus. Later, the convicted persons were taken to the Cuddalore jail.
Janarthanan was killed at midnight while he was sleeping in his house by the group that surrounded his house and gained entry by breaking open the doors. Janathanan, who was attacked with lethal weapons, died later in hospital. The men also vandalised a few houses in the locality.
The motive behind the murder was Janarthanam helping out a cable TV operator, Iyyappan of T Kumarapuram in settling a dispute with some of the convicted them. Those men are alleged to have causing disturbances to Iyyappan’ business when Janarthanan tried to sort out matters.
Angered over it, the group conspired to kill him. Based on a complaint filed by Janarthanan’s son Vignesh, police registered case against Arul(a)Aruljothi (29), Sathish (a) Sathishkumar (29), Mohan (28), Pandurangan(40), Pushpanathan (33), Devanathan,Kumar(37), Sathishkumar (28), Vijayaranga (34), Siva (a) Sivaraj (24), Dhasarathan (28), Kaliyamurthy (54), Kumar (a) Rajkumar (34), Kannan, Moscow (28), Rajaguru (28) and Gunasekaran.
The judge also levied a fine of Rs 1000 and a year’s jail term on all the accused for damaging public property. Also, under 449 IPC, they had been awarded 10 years jail term, which they would have to undergo, concurrently, as per the judgment.
Public prosecutor Ravindhiran appeared in the case. Police teams were deployed in the court campus in T Kumarapuram village.
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