215 officials convicted in torture and mass rape case in tribal TN village

Gopu Mohan, Fri, Sep 30, 2011, Chennai:

A trial court convicted 215 police, forest department and revenue officials for rioting, raping, assaulting and torturing tribals of a village in Tamil Nadu’s Dharmapuri, nearly two decades after one of the worst cases of official brutality in India was reported.

The violence against the inhabitants of Vachathi village — abutting Sathyamangalam forest, which was then forest brigand Veerappan’s base — took place on June 20, 1992.

Tribal villagers had prevented forest guards from searching the hamlet for a sandalwood smuggler and allegedly assaulted them. That evening, a team of officials — 155 forest department personnel, 108 policemen and six revenue officials — entered the village. Men were assaulted, 18 women raped, the village was looted and destroyed.

Principal District and Sessions Judge S Kumaraguru awarded 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment for atrocities against STs and seven years’ RI on charges of rape to 12 forest officials. The terms are to run concurrently. Five other officials facing rape charge were given seven years’ RI.

The 17 officials convicted for rape were arrested immediately. The rest were sentenced to jail terms of between one and three years.

Indian Forest Service officer K Harikrishnan, the then Principal Chief Conservator of Forests, was given three years’ imprisonment. He is one of the four convicted IFS officers.

http://www.indianexpress.com/news/215-officials-convicted-in-torture-and-mass-rape-case-in-tribal-tn-village/853794/