Vachathi | A tribal hamlet’s road to justice paved over the course of 31 years amid hurdles

When Thumbal Krishnamoorthy ran into a group of women gathered under the vast shadow of a banyan tree in Vachathi, a tribal hamlet on the foothills of Sitheri in Dharmapuri district, on the heels of the Madras High Court’s verdict in the case of State brutality on Friday, it was a walk of calm closure – quite different from his first walk to the village in 1992, alongside Basha John, a fellow member of the then just-formed Tamil Nadu Tribal Association (TNTA).

In July 1992, the TNTA meeting in Sitheri Hills was a damp affair, with the party trying to mobilise people and the people fearing the Forest Department personnel. Sitheri Hills were a mystery. That was when, the Communist comrades of Harur, Ambrose and others, told them of an ‘attack on a village at Sitheri’s foothill’.”

Explained | What is the 1992 Vachathi brutality all about?

Mr. Krishnamoorthy and others travelled 18 km on foot down the hills and crossed three villages to reach Vachathi. “When we entered Vachathi, there was an old man and a dog wandering about what was essentially a ghost village. Many had vanished into the hills and others, including the raped women, were in Salem jail. Houses had been vandalised, kerosene poured onto the rice, which was thrown into the village well along with livestock intestines.”

The same day, they all went to meet then Collector Dasarathan well into midnight. He received them but said he was unaware of what happened in Vachathi. The following morning, the party called for a press meet to counter the narrative of “the raid on the sandalwood smuggling village.”

“We along with the now State secretary of TNTA P. Shanmugam and then CPI(M) MLA Annamalai went straight from here to Salem jail to meet the jailed villagers.” But the enormity of what happened hit him, when three girls told him of the rape days later. “Till then we thought it was vandalism by raid,” Mr. Krishnamoorthy says.

In 1992, the first public interest litigation petition filed by the party was dismissed by the then judge Padmini Jesudurai, who was the first woman judge of the Madras High Court, on the grounds that people in high positions were unlikely to commit such offences. It was akin to the judicial reasoning in the acquittal in the Keezhvenmani killings, when the court said, it was unlikely that men who drive cars were prone to commit such heinous crime.

AIADMK’s blot

The then Transport Minister K.A. Sengottaiyan had camped in the TB (Travellers Bungalow) in Harur to derail the identification parade (IP), alleges Mr. Krishnamoorthy. The IP, which was to be held under the supervision of the Uthangarai Magistrate, did not go through, with the magistrate writing to the High Court that he himself needed protection to carry out the identification parade.

Later, the court ordered the IP to be carried out in Salem jail, directing that a police personnel be posted every 10 m to protect the victims. The 18 young women identified their tormentors. This clinched the case.

“They paraded the accused in various attires of veshti and shirt and with towels wrapped around theirs heads to confuse the young women. They refused to stand in the sun saying it was too hot. They tried everything with the support of Mr. Sengottaiyan and Singaram, the then Harur MLA from the AIADMK,” says Mr. Krishnamoorthy, adding that the IP was held three times, and each time, the survivors identified the same men.

When Communist leader Nallasivam, after visiting Vachathi, held a press conference on the atrocities, Mr. Sengottaiyan had posed how he managed to go up the “Malaigramam”  (hill village)with his bad knee unaware that Vachathi was at the foothills of Sitheri.