December is the follow-up month at TNM where we go back to headlines of the past for a status update. In this series, we strive to bring focus back to promises made by governments, revisit official investigations that should have been completed by now and exhume issues of public interest that lost steam over time.
It has been over five years and 10 months since 16-year-old Vandhana*, a Dalit resident of Tamil Nadu’s Ariyalur district, was gangraped and murdered. But the alleged perpetrators – four men from the dominant Vanniyar community who belong to a neighbouring village – continue to roam free despite damning confession statements, eyewitness records, and strong evidence against them. Even a Madras High Court (HC) order in April 2019 directing the lower court in Ariyalur, which is handling the case, to conclude the inquiry within six months has not delivered the expected results.
The case began in July 2019 in the lower court and charges were framed in January 2020. A month later, in February 2020, 10 witnesses in connection to the case were produced before the court. Following this, however, lapses by the investigating police in Ariyalur gave one of the accused a chance to approach the Madras HC and get a stay on the trial proceedings. Existing pendency in the court and the COVID-19 pandemic has further delayed the case from reaching its conclusion.
In 2018, TNM had investigated the threads connecting this cruel caste killing to the alleged perpetrators – Manikandan, a member of the Hindu Munnani, and his cousins Thirumurugan, Maninvannan, and Ramachandran. We had reported that Manikandan and Vandhana had been in a relationship after meeting at a construction site where the latter worked. According to Manikandan’s statement, Vandhana had become pregnant but he was unwilling to marry her as she was a Dalit.
The police investigation had revealed that Manikandan had chosen instead to ‘use and then kill her’. The counsel for Vandhana’s family had submitted that Manikandan (Accused 1/A1) and Manivannan (Accused 2/A2) were allegedly involved in the rape and murder, while Ramachandran (Accused 3/A3) and Thirumurugan (Accused 4/A4) had conspired in the crime. Vandhana’s body had been stripped and dropped into a well weighed down by a large stone.
The accused men
Despite the abject brutality of the crime however, justice eludes Vandhana’s family. Her mother Rajeshwari*, who placed the first complaint when her daughter went missing, continues to go in and out of courts to ensure the culprits behind the murder are punished. But the Dalit family has only met with one setback after another.
Currently, proceedings in the main case have come to a complete halt at the lower court in Ariyalur. In a follow-up we conducted this month, TNM learnt that one of the four accused in the case – Ramachandran alias Vetriselvan – had moved the High Court to reject the charges of conspiracy against him from the final charge sheet submitted to the court. This was done at the beginning of this year and as a result, the case will now proceed only after the HC’s ruling.
The case began in the lower court in July 2019 after the Madras HC’s diktat that it be expedited. Speaking to TNM, Public Prosecutor Abiraman who is handling the matter in the Ariyalur court said, “Section 302 (murder) had only been listed for for A1 and A2 but we have evidence to show A3 and A4 were part of this conspiracy. The police had only booked them under section 201 (Causing disappearance of evidence of offence, or giving false information to screen offender). So we filed a petition in the court asking that section 120B (Conspiracy) be included in the case.”
Based on prima facie, an extra judicial confession by Manikandan, and from other materials collected during investigation, the trial court agreed to allow section 120B to be added to charges against A3 and A4. Ramachandran (A3), however, went to the HC in April and got a stay on this revision.
“The accused did this just as the case was coming to trial. But we cannot let this case proceed without the revision. If 120B is not included, Ramachandran and Thirumurugan may walk free despite evidence of their involvement in the crime and this will not be real justice,” Abiraman said. “The victim’s family and the police have both filed petitions against A3’s appeal,” he added.
In his statement to the court, the Jayamkondan Deputy Superintendent of Police, Kalaikathiravan Paulthurai, mentioned that all four of the accused were involved in the conspiracy to kill.
Listing the sections included by the former DSP Inigo Thivyan who first investigated the case in 2017, Kalaikathiravan admitted, “At the time of framing of charges, section 120B was left out by oversight… A1 (Manikandan) had given an extra judicial confession before the Village Administrative Officer (VAO) in which he specifically stated that all the accused conspired together to murder the minor girl who belonged to a Scheduled Caste and conceal the murder, instead of A1 marrying her.”
This oversight from the police that has led to another delay in the case does not come as a surprise. From the very beginning, Vandhana’s case was handled with complete apathy and discrimination by the local police. When she went missing on December 29, 2016, her family had rushed to file a police complaint only to be told to return the next day. Given that Vandhana was a minor, the police should have immediately filed a case of kidnapping. However, they only filed a missing person case. Moreover, the family was allegedly treated with disdain and made to sign blank papers at the police station to get a Community service register (CSR) copy. The police personnel present at the station had allegedly claimed that Vandhana had eloped with Manikandan (despite her being a minor) and questioned Rajeshwari’s upbringing of her child.
Even the sections under which the accused were later booked was botched. Manikandan and Manivannan were booked under Section 5(a)(i) of the POCSO Act, which pertains to aggravated penetrative sexual assault by a police officer in a police station, whereas the case should have been booked under 5(g) of the POCSO Act, which refers to gangrape. Moreover, both Manikandan and the former DSP had claimed in their extra judicial statement and to the family respectively that Vandhana had been pregnant. The post-mortem report, however, showed no signs of this.
It was the police’s allegedly abject negligence and discrimination against the Dalit victim and contradicting paperwork that had forced the family to go to the High Court to demand a CB-CID probe. The case, which began in 2018, however, ended in favour of the police in 2019.
The Madras High Court declined to transfer the case to the CB-CID. The court found the counter-affidavit filed by the police to be proof that they did not commit any errors in the investigation. The HC had further ordered the Ariyalur court to conclude the inquiry within six months.
“We put in a lot of effort to make sure all charges are included against the accused in court,” said the Public Prosecutor. He maintained that the police have done a “reasonably good job”.
Sources close to this case, however, told TNM, “Unless the basic work done by the police is correct, advocates cannot develop the case. There are witnesses who say that A3 and A4 colluded in the murder. Despite this, conspiracy was not included in the charges.”
Moreover, during TNM’s investigation in 2018, there were allegations that the Hindu Munnani’s district secretary, Rajasekhar, was involved in the case. Manikandan had been the party’s taluk secretary at the time of the crime.
K Sasikumar, an advocate from Ariyalur who was initially associated with the case, questioned why a deeper probe into Rajasekhar’s alleged involvement in the case was not conducted.
“Despite the then DSP being asked to interrogate Rajasekhar, the police did not bother. We believe that Rajasekhar had initially protected Manikandan when the police were looking for him. This link should be explored too,” the advocate insisted.
(*Names changed)
Priyanka Thirumurthy is an award-winning documentary filmmaker and journalist who has covered a wide variety of topics pertaining to gender, human and child rights, crime, politics, and environment in Tamil Nadu.