Nearly seven years after the shocking caste-killing in Tamil Nadu, the Madurai Special Sessions court has on Saturday - March 5 convicted ten of the seventeen accused in the murder case after they were proven guilty. The final verdict has caught major attention and the court has announced that it will dictate the quantum of punishment on March 8. Being one of the startling caste-killing incidents in the state, the case has taken stunning twists and turns including the suicide of a police officer. 

On June 24, 2015, 21-year-old Dalit student Gokulraj, a native of Omalur, Salem was found dead on a railway track in Tiruchengode. He was beheaded and thrown off the track by the mob of an outfit backed by the dominant caste. Gokulraj was an engineering graduate and he was in love with a girl who belonged to the Kongu-Vellar community. On June 23, 2015, they had gone to Arthanareeswara temple in Tiruchengode and the mob had abducted Gokulraj and his body was found the next day at the railway track.

It was apparent that Gokulraj was killed after observing an affair with a girl of a dominant caste. Seven years after the incident, the court has now convicted ten people for murdering Gokulraj, including S Yuvaraj, who was the President of Dheeran Chinnamalai Peravai, a Kongu-Vellalar caste-based outfit. With the backing of his caste, Yuvaraj was willfully running the network that worked to stop inter-caste relationships between members of the Gounder community and others. 

The murder of Gokulraj had sparked large scale protests and the Dalit outfits had demanded stringent action against the perpetrators. A month after the murder, the police had arrested Sankar and Kumar in July in connection to their role and they had confessed to the crime. The police had said that before killing Gokulraj, the assailants had forced him to record a video and write a suicide note. The beheaded body had implied it was a murder. 

Yuvaraj was the Namakkal district president of Dheeran Chinnamalai Peravai and he had been opposing and ruining the inter-caste marriages. With the propaganda of endogamy, he has always campaigned for intra-caste marriages and the mob had abducted Gokulraj from the temple by saying that Yuvaraj wants to speak to him. After the murder, Yuvaraj had absconded and was hiding for three months. However, without revealing his location, Yuvaraj had given interviews to Tamil news channels in which he had claimed that he has no role with the Gokulraj murder case. 

He further questioned the character of Gokulraj and after hiding, Yuvaraj had surrendered before the CBCID on October 11, 2015. However, before his surrendering, 27-year-old DSP Vishnu Priya, who was probing the case had committed suicide on September 18, 2015. It was alleged that she had committed suicide after facing pressure in investigating the case. One year later, in May 2016, Madras High Court has awarded conditional bail to Yuvaraj. However, he was again arrested and jailed in August that year. 

In October 2017, Supreme Court had refused bail to Yuvaraj and he had been under incarceration for the past four years. Three days after the death of DSP Vishnu Priya, the case was transferred to the CB-CID and after years of trial, the case has attained its final stages. The police had arrested a total of 17 people in the case and while two of the accused had died during the trial, the probe processed with 15 accused. 

After the completion of the trial, the Madurai Special Sessions Court has found ten of the fifteen including Yuvaraj as guilty and convicted them, while acquitting the rest. Yuvaraj was the prime accused and his brother Thangadurai was acquitted. Justice Sampath Kumar has pronounced the final verdict and said that the quantum of punishment will be delivered on March 8. The accused were booked under several sections including criminal conspiracy, kidnap, murder, extortion, forgery, cheating, tampering with evidence, and harbouring offender of the Indian Penal Code and section 3(2) (v) of Prevention of Atrocities against SC/ST Act.