Madurai: A Tamil Nadu special court convicted ten people and sentenced them to life term imprisonment in a dishonour killing case. The chief accused, Yuvraj, was given three times life term while five others received double life terms, NDTV reported.
Yuvaraj leads the Dheeran Chinnamalai Peravai, an outfit that works for the cause of the Kongu Vellalar, a backward caste community.
In 2015, a 21-year-old Dalit man, Gokulraj, was killed for his relationship with an upper-caste woman. The man was found dead in railway tracks in the Namakkal district of the state. He was spotted speaking with the girl hours before that.
The woman, who was with him, was the key witness, but she turned hostile during the trial. But CCTV footage served incriminating evidence. It showed Gokulraj being dragged away from a temple by a group of men.
Last week, five of the accused in the case was acquitted.
The Namakkal district had registered a murder case and arrested six people shortly after the crime. The post-mortem report of the victim said that he was dead before he left on the rail tracks. Earlier, the police had registered a case of kidnapping and suspicious death after a note was found from his pocket. However, his family alleged that he was murdered because of his relationship. They had refused to take his body then until a murder case was registered.