The Madras High Court’s judgment, on September 29, 2023, upholding the human rights of the people of Vachathi in Tamil Nadu is remarkable — as a constitutional court, it unmasked and recognised that coordinated and large-scale repression by uniformed forces cannot take place without orders from or complicity at the top levels of the government. The court said, “In order …
The Madras high court on Friday upheld the conviction and sentencing of more than 200 government officials for atrocities against the entire tribal village of Vachathi by beating up the men, raping 18 women, and killing their livestock, three decades ago. The court criticised the then All India Anna Dravida Munnetra Kazhagam government led by late chief minister J Jayalalithaa …
The Madras High Court upheld the convictions of 215 government officials from the forest, police and revenue departments of Tamil Nadu on 29 September. He had reserved the order on the appeals filed by 126 forest employees, 84 police officers and 5 revenue officials in February of this year. He also went to the Vachathi village to conduct a local …
Paranthayi’s toothless slur fumbles, but her memory holds steady, revisiting the horrors of those fateful days of June 20 and its immediate aftermath in 1992, when a little known tribal hamlet of Vachathi in Dharmapuri was forced into the registry of the country’s chequered history of State violence. On Friday, when the Madras High Court delivers its verdict on appeal …
