The trial court here had awarded death penalty to six out of the eight convicted persons in the Dalit youth Shankar murder case, saying the accused deserve no mercy and capital punishment would be fitting for them.
Among the six who were awarded death penalty, the fourth to eighth accused – P. Jagadeesan (31), M. Manikandan (25), P. Selvakumar (25), P. Kalaithamizhvanan (24), and M. Madan alias Michael (25) — were hired by the prime accused B. Chinnasamy, father-in-law of Shankar, to execute the crime.
Ms. Justice Alamelu Natarajan had observed that “it was [because of] the availability of the hired killers, the parents were driven to commit such violent things”.
“.... Parents are mostly concerned about their social status in public. Parents mostly don’t get directly involved in the execution. Therefore, considering this capital punishment, if no perpetrator encourages the parents and gives them time for reflection, then such offences may not happen in the future, and the feeling of hatred with parents would get diluted in the efflux of time”.
The court has examined the “facts and circumstances” of the case which was “very clear and well corroborated by ocular oral-evidence, medical evidence, CCTV footage evidence, and other documents” produced by the prosecution, before awarding the punishments.
The court, in the order, reiterated the anxiety which courts across the country had voiced on how society viewed inter-caste marriages while strongly condemning the so-called “honour killings”.
“... Still sane mind has not set on parents and many others, who still hail the caste system, and disapprove inter-caste marriages, sometimes in a violent manner”.
Life term
On the award of only life imprisonment to Accused-9 Stephen Dhanraj (23), the Judge observed that “.. prosecution has not placed any bad antecedent as to his past acts of violence. Also no overact of A-9 was seen in the scene of occurrence of crime. However, he has been a conspirator with the accused A1, A4 to 8. He has evinced interest to see that execution was completed”.
Ms. Justice Alamelu Natarajan observed, “A-9 deserves to suffer imprisonment for life without any remission or premature release”.
