INDIA: DHARMAPURI BUS BURNING: HC UPHOLDS DEATH PENALTY FOR 3 AIADMK ACTIVISTS

the Madras High Court in India upheld the death sentence awarded to three AIADMK activists in the Dharmapuri bus burning case in which three girl students of a Agricultural University were burnt alive in February 2000. Confirming the death sentence awarded by a lower court in Salem to Neduchezhian, Ravindran and Muniappan, a division bench comprising Justice D Murugesan and Justice B Periya Karuppiah held that the prosecution had proved the charges beyond reasonable doubt. The bench also confirmed the conviction of 25 others in the case. But the High Court awarded maximum two years sentence to all of them instead of seven years imprisonment pronounced by the lower court on various counts. The Bench dismissed all the appeals filed by the accused. A Tamil Nadu Agricultural University bus in Dharmapuri in Salem district was set on fire by AIADMK sympathisers protesting a judgement by a special court convicting and sentencing former Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, J Jayalalithaa. Three female students were burnt alive in the incident. The accused were earlier convicted by the Sessions court in Salem on February 15 this year.