The Vachathi case involved a mass crime that occurred on 20 June 1992 in the village of Vachathi, in

Dharmapuri district Dharmapuri is one of the 38 districts in the state of Tamil-Nadu, India. It is the List of districts in Tamil Nadu, first district created in Tamil Nadu after the independence of India by splitting it from then-Salem district on 2 October 1965. ...

Tamil Nadu Tamil Nadu (; , TN) is the southernmost States and union territories of India, state of India. The List of states and union territories of India by area, tenth largest Indian state by area and the List of states and union territories of Indi ...

. A team of 155 forest personnel, 108 policemen and six revenue officials entered the

Tribal The term tribe is used in many different contexts to refer to a category of human social group. The predominant worldwide use of the term in English is in the discipline of anthropology. The definition is contested, in part due to conflict ...

-dominated Vachathi village, searching for smuggled

sandalwood Sandalwood is a class of woods from trees in the genus ''Santalum''. The woods are heavy, yellow, and fine-grained, and, unlike many other aromatic woods, they retain their fragrance for decades. Sandalwood oil is extracted from the woods. Sanda ...

and to gather information about

Veerappan Koose Munisamy Veerappan (18 January 1952 – 18 October 2004) was an Indian poacher, smuggler, domestic terrorist and Banditry, bandit who was active for 36 years, and kidnapped major politicians for ransom. He was charged with sandalwoo ...

. Under the pretext of conducting a search, the team ransacked the villagers' property, destroyed their houses, killed their cattle, assaulted around 100 villagers, and raped 18 women. After a court order, the CBI began probing the case, which was also under the scope of the

National Human Rights Commission A human rights commission, also known as a human relations commission, is a body set up to investigate, promote or protect human rights. The term may refer to international, national or subnational bodies set up for this purpose, such as nationa ...

. On 29 September 2011, a special court in India convicted all 269 accused officials under the SC-ST Prevention of Atrocities act and 17 of those for rape. Fifty-four of the original accused had died by the time of the convictions; the remaining 215 were sentenced to jail.

Background

Vachathi is a village located in

, away from the state capital

Chennai Chennai, also known as Madras (List of renamed places in India#Tamil Nadu, its official name until 1996), is the capital city, capital and List of cities in Tamil Nadu by population, largest city of Tamil Nadu, the southernmost states and ...

. During June 1992, the villagers, who were mostly tribals, prevented forest and revenue officials from entering the hamlet. The officials complained that the villagers were involved in sandalwood smuggling and aiding

, a notorious forest brigand. During the evening, 269 officials, being 155 forest personnel, 108 policemen and six revenue officials, raided the village and herded the villagers under a tree. A hundred men from the village were brutally assaulted while 18 women were gangraped. The raid continued for two days when the hamlet was demolished.

Trial

The trial was held at Dharmapuri Principal District Court. There were 269 accused in the case that had 155 forest personnel, 108 policemen, and six revenue officials. All the 269 who were accused were sentenced on 29 September 2011. Of the 269, 54 died during the trial. Of the remaining 215, 126 belonged to the forest department, 84 were policemen, and five were revenue officials. Out of the 17 rapists, 12 were sentenced to 17 years imprisonment and 5 were given 5 years of imprisonment. The rest of the accused were sentenced to one to two years in prison. The Central Bureau of Investigation, had probed the case, on the directions of the

Madras High Court The High Court of Judicature at Madras is a High Courts of India, High Court located in Chennai, India. It has appellate jurisdiction over the state of Tamil Nadu and the union territory of Puducherry (union territory), Puducherry. It is one of ...

in 1995 and filed a charge sheet against as many as 269 accused who included the then Principal Chief Conservator of Forests (PCCF), M. Harikrishnan, Conservators of Forests, P. Muthaiyan and L. Nathan and District Forest Officer, S. Balaji for brutally gangraping the women in the village.

Aftermath

Police were not ready to accept the case for three years and the then state minister K. A. Sengottaiyan commented that the villagers were aiding sandalwood smuggling. The villagers were denied compensation for a long time. On 12 September 2014, the state government offered a compensation of 12.2 lakh to all the victims. An additional 60,000 was allocated to each of the 105 villagers who were drafted in the chargesheet filed in 1999. The chargesheet was quashed by the court during November 2012.

Media depictions

The entire incident has been made into a film by the name ''Vachathi'', and in the background of the Veerappan nabbing operation, many atrocities and human rights violations were committed by special task force police. The Tamil novel ''Solagar Thotti'', written by S. Balamurugan, exposed the same.

Vetrimaaran V. Chitravel Vetrimaaran (born 4 September 1975) is an Indian film director, film producer and screenwriter who primarily works in Tamil cinema. He is known for his unique filmography with major commercial success and highly critically acclaime ...

's film ''

Viduthalai Part 1 ''Viduthalai Part 1'' () is a 2023 Indian Tamil-language period political crime thriller film directed and co-produced by Vetrimaaran under Grass Root Film Company and RS Infotainment. It is the first of a two-part adaptation of the short stor ...

'' is also based on the same incident.

External links

Vachathi Film
on

The Hindu ''The Hindu'' is an Indian English-language daily newspaper owned by The Hindu Group, headquartered in Chennai, Tamil Nadu. It was founded as a weekly publication in 1878 by the Triplicane Six, becoming a daily in 1889. It is one of the India ...

References