Eight years after AIADMK founder and former Chief Minister M G Ramachandran's foster son-in-law Vijayan was murdered in Chennai, the Principal Sessions Court has sentenced Vijayan's close relative Banu Sridhar and six others to life imprisonment.
MGR’s adopted daughter Sudha’s husband Vijayan was hacked to death near Alwarpet in June 2008. The case that was initially probed by the Abhiramapuram police was taken over by the CB-CID.
Reacting to the verdict, sudha said, "I am thankful to the police and media. My husband will finally get justice."
On June 4, 2008, Vijayan was forced to stop his car and step out. The assailants then dashed their car against him and hacked him to death. Almost 70 witnesses had deposed before the magistrate.
In 2008, CB-CID, which probed the case, had said that the murder was masterminded by a police constable at the behest of N Banu Sridhar who was Sudha’s sister. Banu was also MGR's adopted daughter.
MGR had adopted his wife Janaki's brother's seven children. The siblings were all at war with each other over property worth hundreds of crores. Though initially, the police had suspected Latha Rajendran, the eldest sister and wife of Rajendran, MGR's will executor, Banu was later found to be the mastermind behind the murder.
Banu had a running feud with her brother Raja (also known as Dilipan and Ramachandran) over control of one of the schools run by the family and her sibiling had filed a case in a court in this regard. Banu was the principal of the Janaki Ramachandran Matriculation School.
She had suspected Vijayan to be the brain behind her brother who was working against her interest. She allegedly decided to do away with Vijayan and conspired with a constable Karuna. She had allegedly paid him Rs four lakh to murder Vijayan.
Karuna had allegedly hired five men to murder Vijayan. While two followed Vijayan's car in a motorcycle, others toed the victim in another car.
The assailants in the car hit Vijayan's vehicle twice and when he got down to question them and the other two hit him with an iron pipe, killing him.
Banu's co-conspirant and friend Bhuvana is still absconding.