Madurai: Swathi, who became a perjury witness in the engineering student Gokulraj murder case, appeared in the Madurai branch of the High Court under heavy police protection and testified.
Gokulraj is an engineering graduate from Omalur in Salem district. Belongs to the list. He has fallen in love with another society girl along with Namakkal who studied with him. Both were talking on 23.6.2015 at Arthanareeswarar Temple in Tiruchengode. Gokulraj never returned home after that. Subsequently, Gokulraj’s body was found with his head and body dismembered on the East Tintipalayam railway track in Namakkal district.
Investigation revealed that Gokulraj was murdered because he was in love with a woman from a different community. In this case Yuvraj, the founder of Theeran Chinnamalai Counter Council, his car driver Arun got 3 life sentences, Kumar, Satishkumar, Raghu, Ranjith, Selvaraj got 2 life sentences, one life sentence each for section, Krithar and 5 years rigorous imprisonment for another section, one for Chandrasekaran. Sentenced to life imprisonment. 5 people were released.
All 10 persons, including Yuvraj, filed an appeal in the High Court branch seeking quashing of the sentence. A petition was filed in the High Court branch on behalf of Gokulraj’s mother Chitra and CBCID seeking to quash the acquittal of 5 persons and sentence them.
The Madurai branch of the High Court, which heard the case, said that it has become customary for witnesses to turn perjury in important cases. Courts should not turn a blind eye when star witnesses turn perverse. We want to re-examine Swathi in this case. As a result, the investigating officer ordered Swathi to appear in person at the High Court branch today (November 25) and the Superintendent of Police Namakkal to provide police protection to Swathi and her family.
Accordingly, Swathi was produced before a bench comprising Judges MS Ramesh and N. Anand Venkatesh of the Madurai Branch of the High Court. Judges then, did you know Gokulraj during his college days from 2011-2015? They questioned that. To which Swathi replied that he knew.
Tell the truth: Will you talk to Gokulraj? To the question raised by the judges, Swathi replied that he would talk too much. The judges then showed a video that appeared in the media regarding the Gokulraj murder case. In that video recording, there were scenes like Gokulraj and Swathi coming. Who is the girl accompanying Gokulraj in that video? asked the judges. Swathi said she did not know who it was. He continued to say that he did not remember exactly who it was.
Then the judges questioned whether the incident happened 7 years ago, he did not remember the incident and who was the woman wearing salwar kameez in the video. Also, they said that we are asking you so many questions so that you can tell the truth. Then Swathi started to rot in the court. Then the judges told Swathi, “Even if you are crying, we expect the truth from you. So tell the truth of what happened.”