Dinesh Kumar, the accused in the gruesome murder of a 14-year-old Dalit girl from Thalavaipatti village near Aathur has been booked under the Goondas Act by the Salem police. The District Collector of Salem, Rohini Bhajibhakare invoked the provisions of Goondas Act on Thursday evening and signed off the relevant papers for it. Under the Goondas Act, a person may be detained without bail for up to a year.
Speaking to TNM, the investigating officer in the case said that the team was already considering adding the provisions of Goondas Act to the case. He said, “The procedure generally takes 15 days to go through, but in this case we got it done in 4 days. The police submitted a proposal to the District Collector with a note from the SP. The opinion of the public prosecutor was then obtained, after which the Collector signed off on the papers invoking Goondas Act on the accused.”
Dinesh Kumar was arrested on October 23 a day after he beheaded a 14-year-old girl. The victim was a class 8 student in the Panchayat Union Primary School, Thalavaipatti and she and her mother were stringing flowers inside their house when the crime happened. After the murder, he allegedly flung the severed head on to the road and abandoned the weapon. The police nabbed the accused and then recovered the weapon. Dinesh Kumar was booked for murder under the IPC and relevant provisions of the Scheduled Caste and Scheduled Tribes (Prevention of Atrocities) Amendment Act since the accused belonged to a dominant caste group in the region. He is now lodged in the Salem Central Prison.
Although initially the motive behind the murder was not clear, over the past week, the family of the victim has claimed that Dinesh Kumar had made sexual advances towards the victim and had murdered her after she spurned his advances. They had also demanded that the police add the relevant provisions of POCSO Act to the case.