Vengaivayal case: Police report opens can of worms

The recent police chargesheet naming three youths — Muraliraja, Muthukrishnan, and Sudharsan — from the Scheduled Caste community as the main accused in the case of human faeces being dumped into an overhead drinking water tank in a Dalit neighbourhood of Vengaivayal in Pudukkottai district in December, 2022, has potentially opened a can of worms in a State where caste discrimination is rife and political discourse is often shaped along the lines of caste and linguistic identities. A report in The Hindu quoting the investigation report said: “Considering the prevailing motive with Muthaiya and to take revenge on him, Muraliraja on December 26, 2022, falsely claimed that the water supplied from the tank was turbid with bad odour and he, along with two of the villagers Muthukrishnan and Sudharsan, climbed up the tank and committed the offence.” In a statement posted by the Tamil Nadu police on its official handle on X.com on January 25, 2025, it claimed that the CB-CID had come to the conclusion that the accused had committed the act based on analysis of the photos and videos deleted from the cell phones seized from three accused, Muthaiya, and a few others and also on the basis of reports of the Tamil Nadu Forensic Sciences Laboratory, the DNA report, chemical analysis reports, voice test reports, and the medical reports of children treated by doctors, investigating officers’ procedural explanations, and a report from Tamil Nadu Electricity Board. Human rights activists, on their part, have argued that the CB-CID’s conclusion is not based on indisputable evidence, as it should be, considering the extraordinary claim, but is rather the inevitable result of the police’s inefficient investigation and growing political pressure in the context of the present State government’s claim of being the vanguard of social justice and an attempt to keep intact the intricately built caste-equations — locally and across the State — for the upcoming Assembly elections. Samuel Raj, State secretary, Tamil Nadu Untouchability Eradication Front, said that while he was confident that the claims made in the police chargesheet would never stand the test of scrutiny in the court, he said that the police’s claims had dealt a body blow to Dalits and their fight for dignity and rights.