Gokulraj murder case | Madras HC upholds life sentence to Yuvaraj of Theeran Chinnamalai Gounder Peravai for beheading Scheduled Caste youth

The Madras HC on June 2, 2023 upheld the conviction and life sentence (till death without any remission) imposed by a trial court on S. Yuvaraj (43) of Theeran Chinnamalai Gounder Peravai for beheading Scheduled Caste youth V. Gokulraj in 2015

The Madras High Court on Friday (June 2) upheld the conviction and life sentence (till death without any remission) imposed by a trial court on S. Yuvaraj (43) of Theeran Chinnamalai Gounder Peravai and seven others for beheading Scheduled Caste engineering student V. Gokulraj in 2015 on mere suspicion that he was in love with a girl belonging to Kongu Vellalar community.

A Division Bench of Justices M.S. Ramesh and N. Anand Venkatesh reduced the life sentence of just two convicts M. Prabhu and P. Giridhar, arrayed as accused numbers 13 and 14, alone to five years of rigorous imprisonment after convicting them for only two charges, including the offence of harbouring an offender, under the Indian Penal Code.

The Bench dismissed a plea filed by the victim’s mother and the prosecution against the trial court’s decision to acquit five other accused and held that the trial court had given plausible reasons for not finding any reason to convict them. It also dismissed another appeal by her to enhance the punishment of all convicts to death sentence.

According to the prosecution case, the prime convict Yuvaraj attached great value to his caste identity and vociferously opposed inter-caste marriages. On June 23, 2015, he had gone to Tiruchengode Ardhanareeswarar Temple with some of his accomplices. There, he saw the victim conversing with his college mate and suspected they were in love.

He summoned the victim and the latter’s college mate and enquired about their background. He also wanted to know if they were in love with each other but both denied it. Not convinced, he sent away the girl to her residence with escort and abducted the victim in his car after blindfolding him.

After changing vehicles and dresses, the assailants also forced Gokulraj to sign a suicide note and record a video message claiming he had decided to die by suicide due to love failure. Thereafter, the youth was taken to a rail track where his head was severed and the torso was laid in between the tracks to make it appear as if it was a suicide.

Though the police laid a chargesheet against 15 accused, the trial court had convicted only 10 and acquitted the rest on March 8, 2022 leading to the present appeals.